


Far Better Things

by Continuedinterests



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Can't magic your way into understanding what you want, F/M, Fluff, a touch of angst, questions around Dumbledore, trio friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Continuedinterests/pseuds/Continuedinterests
Summary: He had a plan. He had pictured it clear as day. He and Ginny sending their three kids off on the Hogwarts express. Ron and him, best friends and partners stopping dark wizards. Hermione doing who knows what, but probably running the world, no doubt. He would have a comfortable home and a garden and a family. Some peace, maybe.Expect none of that is happening. Well, maybe Hermione's still taking over the world, but none of the rest.Instead he's staring blearily at this small muggle woman at three in the morning, wondering how someone so small can pack away so much vodka.Not a lot of views or comments, but give it a shot! I uploaded it in a short amount of time.
Relationships: Background Hermione/Ron - Relationship, Harry Potter/Original Character(s), Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 13
Kudos: 43





	1. Bodyguard

Harry woke up to the sound of Ron and Hermione squabbling. He tried to ignore it, tried to roll over and put a pillow over his head, but it was no use. He was awake now.

He went into the living room, the morning light slanting through the bay windows making him squint. Ron and Hermione stopped talking as he entered and flopped down on the sofa opposite them.

Ron turned to him, "Harry, don't you think that…"

"No."

"No?"

"No, I don't think. Also, don't drag me into whatever fight you're having."

"But mate, she won't listen to reason and I…"

"Won't listen to reason? Really? Really? I think I know who's the one not listening here."

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, a bad sign if there ever was one. Harry groaned and stood up again. "Who wants some breakfast? I'll do a fry up."

Ron turned to him, a smile breaking over his agitated face, "Really, what for?"

"I'm going to be gone for a while, remember?"

Hermione uncrossed her arms, looking a little sad. "I can't believe you have to hang around that odious man for however long."

"I think he's kind of funny, and at least he's not some berk stuck on being a pureblood."

"If by funny you mean incredibly materialistic, then I agree with you."

"Even when you agree with me you don't actually agree with me."

Hermione laughed, her response drowned out by Harry closing the kitchen door.

Harry tapped the wireless with his wand, turned down the clashing guitars of the Weird Sisters until they were just background noise. He turned to the refrigerator to get ingredients, gathering this and that in his arms. He didn't have to be into work until noon, so he could take his time.

As he was heating up the beans, he heard Ron's voice raise, though he couldn't quite make out the words, followed by Hermione's, which sounded like she was saying, "Oh honestly."

Harry turned up the radio a little and started unpacking the sausages, smiling to himself. Some parts of Ron and Hermione's relationship haven't changed since they were eleven.

A short while later, he set the table, placed the food in the center and walked into the living room again, only to jerk back as Hermione and Ron broke apart from their passionate kiss.

"You two are horrendous to live with. Breakfast is ready."

Turning around and entering the kitching, he heard them shuffle in behind him. They all sat down, Ron immediately plucking a rasher off the plate and popping into his mouth. Hermione looked at him with wide, worried eyes. "You don't mean it do you?"

Harry considered them for a long moment, "I suppose not."

Grinning, Ron took another rasher, "Good, that would be sad, what with how much we love you."

Hermione nodded in solemn agreement while reaching for the toast.

Leaning back in his chair, he smiled at them. "You two are alright, too, I guess."

~~~***~~~

"There is some genuine humour in you being my bodyguard." William Oak slammed his large, ring covered hand on Harry's shoulder, his voice booming down the concrete and glass hallway. "But that's why it works you see, no one would think you would be able to do anything, what with you being a bit of a bean pole. No offense meant of course." He laughed a barking rough laugh and then patted Harry on the back twice before turning abruptly down an almost invisible side hallway, his pace picking up as they got closer to their destination.

William Oak is the richest wizard in all of Europe, ousting the Malfoys from that title even before their fall from grace. It shows in his walk, in his clothes, in his fake easy smile, in his impatience. His short silver gray hair and closely shaved beard align more with muggle fashion than with wizard. He is famously quoted as saying, after the war was over, "That's why the Malfoys fell. They hated muggles. Who can hate muggles? They have so much money." He once wrote in an article that he identified more with capitalist than wizard.

Harry didn't know what to make of him. Some part of him was reminded of Vernon, of Lockhart, all bluster, ego, showmanship. But other parts of him thought of Mr. Weasley, and, oddly, of Hagrid. There was an open curiosity about Oak that made him more charming than Lockhart, a gentleness to his massive frame that made him more Hagrid than Vernon, but still, he couldn't get a read on him, couldn't settle into a conclusion.

The hallway opened into a massive modern ballroom just as abruptly as it appeared at the other end. Oak didn't slow his pace at all and headed like a missile towards the table in the middle, something in his posture becoming almost aggressive. "Christopher, Christopher my wonderful man!"

Christopher, a man in his late forties and a crisp suit stiffened in his chair before slowly turning around. He groaned. "Christ, what do you want?"

"Your answer of course! Why haven't you answered any of my calls? My emails. It's starting to feel personal, you know."

"That's because it is."

"It shouldn't be, this is about money and if we can make it. Now, hold on," Oak turned to Harry, who was lingering awkwardly behind him. "Go sit at that table with the other assistants, if you don't mind?" Harry raised an eyebrow and smirked, but nodded and began walking toward the table at the far end of the room where there was a group of young people with piles of papers, notepads, and mobile phones, antennas out. Everywhere was coffee, paper, and people talking over one another.

Harry could hear Oak's booming voice behind him as he crossed the room, his eyes scanning for anything odd and finding plenty, just not of the dangerous variety. He sighed as he sat down next a small young woman with a massive amount of golden wavy hair.

Across the room Oak was gesturing wildly while Christopher looked more and more red faced. Harry couldn't quite make out what they were saying. He felt a tap on his arm. The girl with golden hair smiled at him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners. "Are you new? I haven't seen you around."

"Hmmm, yes and no." Harry smiled back briefly before turning back to the room and looking for any strange behavior. Christopher jumped up suddenly, making Harry stiffen a little, but he just turned on his heels and stormed from the room, while Oak threw his head back and laughed. He looked over at Harry and made a thumbs up.

"Oh, you're working for Oak? That must be rough. I hear he can be okay too sometimes, though. What's he been for you so far?"

It was the girl again, not taking the hint apparently. It didn't matter too much, Oak's next target was at a closer table and he was able to keep him easily in his periphery. "It hasn't been very long yet, so I can't honestly say, but so far, rough but sometimes okay seems close enough. Who's yours?"

She sighed and gestured to a woman with black hair in a bob and a red power suit with massive shoulder pads. Something in her sparkling eyes made him think of a spider. "Is she worried she's going to get tackled?"

The girl snorted and then laughed, covering her face with her hand, her fingernails painted a summer sky blue. "It's supposed to be from some Italian designer and I just 'don't understand the complex world of fashion'. My fault for saying anything, I knew it wasn't going to go well."

She leaned closer, her smile mischievous. Suddenly he felt like a primary schooler again. Or would, if he had anyone to share secrets with in primary. "You know something funny? You can't get mobile reception in here, the glass and concrete is too thick."

Harry raised his eyes at the five or so people who were having loud, ongoing conversations on their phones. He leaned in forward too, "Then what are they doing?"

She shrugged, grinning, "Who knows. This place is like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, the longer you look, the weirder it gets."

Harry smiled wider and looked back into the crowd. Oak was practically standing over a man who was slumped over in his seat, his red face trying and failing to look unintimidated. At the same table was a man with a walrus mustache, a monocle and a polka dotted suit. "Is that an Italian designer too?" He nodded his head in the man's direction.

She shook her head in rueful sort of way. "That's Mr. Abbot. He's old, old money. I think at some point old money people just completely lose any attachment to reality."

Harry nodded, scanning the room again. At least she was giving him a good reason to look around.

"My name's Sophie, yours? Oh, look at the back table by the windows."

"Mine's Harry. Is she wearing ... I … is that ...?"

"Yes, a purple feathered cape."

"I bet that's a French designer, then."

She started laughing again before abruptly stopping, "Oh shit." she muttered under breath, circling around the table, walking in front of him. He could see the woman in red watching her walk closer with a displeased look on her face. This Sophie was quite short, barely needing to lean over to have the woman in red furiously whisper in her ear.

"Made a friend then?" Oak was suddenly in front of him, glass of something dark in his hand. He moved very fast and quietly for a man of his size.

"I think she might be the only sane person here." Harry shrugged, giving him a short grin.

"Everyone else is mad, including me?" Oak's face was suddenly impossible to read. He couldn't tell if he was looking to joke or wanted him to suck up. Harry was never much of a suck up.

"Especially you."

Oak's rough booming laugh filled the area around him. A few of the assistants forgot to pretend to speak into their phones in their surprise. He clapped his shoulder again, nodding his head towards the door. "We have to go now, to the next thing."

"Already?

"Yes, I hate wasting time at these things. I drank, I ate, I networked, now onward."

"I can see why you said you didn't want to cart around a team of people."

"I hate corralling people, worse than cats they are."

They were already walking towards the door. Harry glanced back to find Sophie moving back toward the assistant's table, shoulders slumped. She looked around after seeing his empty seat, spotted him leaving, and they waved. Her grin already slipping into a frown as they they turned the corner, and she was out of sight.

It was midnight and Oak didn't seem to have any less energy. He burst into events, prodded, poked, wheeled and dealed, joked and intimidated. He was a force of nature and just watching him work made Harry feel tired. He could also see how he had credible threats against his life, as he clearly didn't appear charming to everyone he descended upon.

"I have to say, when I requested the best from the ministry for protection, I didn't think they would give me you. Shouldn't you, I don't know, be doing something more… big scale?"

They had just flooed into Oak's living room. Harry had a bag with him as he was going to stay until they could find the people making threats on Oak. He felt his throat clench at the question. How many times had he asked the same thing to himself?

"It can't always be killing dark lords and fighting death eaters, can it?" He felt like he was saying it more to himself than Oak, but Oak nodded, his first silent response of the evening, and gestured toward the door at the beginning of the hallway.

"There's the guest bedroom. I need to glance over some paperwork, so don't be alarmed if you hear me thumping around."

He nodded, pulling out a sneakoscope and his wand. "I know you have protections up already, but, frankly, mine will probably be better."

Harry placed his bag on the ground. He went through the familiar movements of protection charms, defensive hexes, and alarms. Oak watched, his eyes sharp and dark in the dim lighting, until he was finished. "You learned all that in Auror training?"

"Oh, here and there." Some of them were from his horcrux camping days, some new additions from his time as an Auror, some picked up from people he knew, like Bill. Those tended to be the most useful.

Moving swiftly across the large, open living room, Oak was already at his office door. "Well, then, Goodnight."

"Night."

He wondered how Ron and Hermione were doing without him there to make dinner. He left a note on the table that he put a few meals in the freezer for them, but he could picture Hermione being stubborn.

He double checked his spells and, picking up his bag as he went, pushed the door open to the guest bedroom. The room was three times as large as his back at the flat, one wall was floor to ceiling windows, one wall all white closet doors without handles, one wall with a plain white door to what he assumes is a WC, and the wall where the head of the massive bed rested was a dark, chalky gray.

The view from the enormous windows seemed to be of a forest or a park, all dark shapes shifting slightly in the breeze.

Oak's question, shouldn't you be doing something more large scale, seemed to lie upon him heavier in the silence.

After triple checking the alarms, he went to bed, resting his glasses on the side table. As he drifted off in the impersonal, cold room, he wondered where, in the last three years of his life since he defeated Voldemort, all his bravery had gone. He was too afraid to really try to even think about the answer to Oak's question anymore.

The next day was all board meetings and conferences rooms he had to sit outside of. His muggle suit felt tight and claustrophobic. He missed his auror robes or jeans. He hoped the investigation was going quickly so he could be done doing this.

After a short lunch that consisted of Oak eating a sausage roll and walking very quickly towards another building for another meeting, Harry was sat on stiff brown cushioned benches outside the black gleaming doors of the conference room.

The whole hallway was lined with such benches, people sitting briefly, writing quick notes, making fast, hushed phone calls. At the other end, he saw a golden gleam of hair, and, looking around an obese man making sharp gestures and whispering furiously, he saw Sophie from the day before. Her eyebrows were drawn together in intense concentration as she compared two pieces of paper, sometimes moving a pen quickly along a notepad in her lap. Her mass of thick, wavy long hair was wrapped up close to the crown of her head in a neat, large bun.

Glancing around, keeping his eyes moving back towards the conference room doors where Oak was, Harry moved down the hallway, sitting down next her. She glanced up briefly from her work and back, unthinkingly, before double checking him. "Henry!"

"Harry."

She blushed, wincing. "I'm absolutely terrible with names, I'm sorry."

"No worries, Sandra."

She smiled widely, "I deserve that." She shuffled her papers into a neat stack, still grinning, before pausing and glancing back at him. "Oh, um, you do know that it's actually…"

"Sophie, yes, I'm very good with names myself."

"I'm glad you are, it's generally an important skill in an assistant, as my boss tells me all the time, usually just as I'm feeling a little happy." Her wide grin was a little more strained now.

"How is working for your boss anyway? Is she still expecting to be tackled?"

"No, today she looks like she is ready for ancient Greece. Her dress is bizarrely toga-y. And Angela is, well, she requires a high standard. I'm just not sure if I can meet it."

"That's the politest way I've ever heard anyone call their boss a nitpicky bint before. Impressive."

Sophie beamed at him.

"Sophie. Flirting on the job again I see. We need to go in five, be ready, for once."

Her sparkling dark eyes met Harry's for a long beat before she entered back into the smaller conference room doors she had stuck her head out of.

Sophie looked a little pale. "I hope she didn't hear any of that."

He shrugged. "She doesn't seem like the type to let an insult slide, does she?"

Biting her lip, she nodded, gathering all her things together. "When she says five minutes, she usually means one. I hope to see you around some more. Oak and her run in very similar circles, so…"

"Yeah, I'll see you." Harry stood as she did, her smaller frame stopping it's rise much faster than his. She was at least a head and a bit more shorter than him.

Angela burst out of the room, barely glancing back at Sophie to see if she was following and sped down the hallway, her toga like white dress billowing behind her. For some reason Harry remembered Snape, his cloak flapping behind him as he hunted down some person or another having fun.

Shaking his head, Harry moved back down the hallway, sitting by the room doors again, already bored.

Hours that felt like slow days later, Oak exited the conference room, his pace slower, his energy lower than Harry had ever seen it.

"Why don't you take the evening off tonight, hmm?" Oak said, walking toward the lifts. There were too many people around, swarming this way and that from the meeting that just ended, for Harry to reply in a direct manner.

"You know I really can't."

Oak sighed. "When we get back to the apartment, could you ask them how things are going?"

"Yes, I'll let you know whatever I can."

The lift was smooth and silent in its descent, Oak's usually borderline hyper energy changed to an equally distracting brooding, his presence a tense dark cloud in the corner of the small space.

People got off and on, some whispering to each other, sometimes the crowded space dead silent as they reached lower and lower into the building, eventually arriving at the lower level multistorey car park.

Rounding a column and glancing around to see that they were alone, they apparate away, appearing just inside the front door of Oak's apartment. He still looked deflated.

"Bad meeting?" Harry waved his wand, checking to see if there had been any disturbances. There hadn't.

Oak considered him for a long moment as he moved to sit on the low gray sofa by the window. "It was. I won't go into detail but I was rather betrayed. Also, I think I might know who has been sending me death threats."

Harry turned, surprised, looking at him directly. "Who?"

He pulled out an very long light wood wand and flicked it, apparently casting a accio as a crystal decanter half filled with dark liquid and two short glasses flew to the table, landing with a small scraping sound and some sloshing.

"Drink?"

"I can't, not while working."

Oak stared at him for a long moment, "Right, well," he poured himself a generous amount and sipped, "have a seat."

Harry sat, leaning forward. If Oak had a genuine idea, this all might be over a lot sooner than they all hoped.

"His name is Robert Able. He isn't on the list of possible suspects that I gave you at the beginning of all this, as I thought he was my friend. But today he took our ten year friendship and lucrative partnership and sold it all down the river for short sighted piles of cash from some losers that will eventually screw him over just as he's screwed me." His voice became increasingly bitter as he spoke, finishing it off by downing his drink with a grimace.

Harry stared at him. "Did he say anything threatening to you? What makes you think he might be making the threats?"

Oak poured himself another drink, swirling it in his glass a little. "No, but I didn't have you all check him out because I thought he was my friend. That's no longer the case, so I would like you to."

Harry sat back, frowning. "I can't investigate people based solely on them making business deals you don't like."

Oak leaned forward, elbows on his knees, glass dangling from one hand. "Have you ever been betrayed, Mr. Potter?"

He raised his eyebrows at him but didn't respond.

"I imagine that you have considering how much went on in your early life. So you should know that once a betrayal is realized, it throws everything they've done into question. I don't think it's unreasonable to have him checked out."

Harry shoved the image of Dumbledore's smiling portrait hanging in McGonagall's office firmly from his mind and considered Oak's words. "I'll ask the team, then."

"Thank you, there is a secure floo fireplace in the office, if you'd like?"

Harry nodded, walking to the office, leaving Oak in sitting with his head in his hands.

Pinching the powder, he tossed it into the fireplace, contemplating who to ask for as the flames burned emerald green. Leaning down and sticking his head into the fire, he said, "Auror department reception."

A sickening moment of twirling confusion and discomfort from his head being far away from his body later, he saw the lobby of the auror department. It was quiet and dark because of the late hours, except for the night receptionist who squeaked as she saw his head in the fire, dropping her magazine on her desk.

"Mr. Potter! Wh-what brings you around?" She knelt by the fireplace, looking worried.

"Can you make sure that first thing in the morning that Lisa, who's working on the Oak case, knows to investigate a former partner of Oak named Robert Able? I'll also send a memo, if you can get me a spare one?"

"Sure thing Mr. Potter." She stood back up, her heels clacking she walked toward her desk, grabbing one of the memos off of her pile and walking back. Harry pushed his arm through, extending a hand. She delivered him the memo, her lightly shaking hand lingering against his. "Anything you need." She held eye contact a beat too long.

"Um, thank you." He pulled out of the fireplace, feeling uncomfortable now in more ways than one.

Rubbing his neck as he entered back into the living room, he saw Oak sprawled on top of the couch, the decanter holding significantly less liquid than it used to. He moved to walk passed but Oak's voice stopped him. "Would you like some unasked for advice from an old man?" Despite his disheveled appearance Oak's voice was as strong and clear as ever. Harry turned fully to look at him, eyebrows raised.

"You've been a good kid all your life, I'd wager, trying to do the right thing, even when it was hard. You could have told the whole world to fuck off all the times they changed their mind about you but for some reason you still fought for us. And we're all grateful. But however grateful we all are, it will never be enough. People will take and take from you, run you dry and then complain when they can't take any more. My advice is to stop."

Despite his apprehension, he couldn't help but ask, his voice low, "Stop what?"

Oak loosened his tie further, placing his glass on the table as he stared at the ceiling. "Stop being the good kid. Stop seeking approval. Stop sacrificing and doing a good job even though it's hard. You've got spunk, go take what's yours."

He put his hands in his pockets, "And what's mine to take?"

"I dunno, whatever you want. Get yourself a life, a girlfriend now that that Weasley girl has left you, a hobby of some sort. Go take some happiness and stop being so bloody serious all the time."

"You don't even know me. I'm just at work right now, I'm not always serious."

Oak give him a slow grin, "Somehow I doubt that."

Harry sighed, turning on his heel. "Good night."

Oak's chuckle followed him as he closed the guest bedroom door behind him.


	2. Simple Answers

Oak seemed to think that they were the best of friends after their conversation and gave his opinion openly and often regarding a number of things over the next week.

"That Weasley girl didn't seem good enough for you anyway."

"Don't bad mouth Ginny, we're still friends. You know, kind of. Or we will be after some time passes and it's not so awkward."

"She definitely dumped you then, didn't she?"

"Just… shut up, Oak. Don't you have financiers to terrorize or something?"

"As matter a fact I do! Let's go."

Nothing happened, ever. Plenty of people threatened to punch Oak in a wide variety of ways, from joking, flirtatious, to dead serious, but no death threats. The team said that looking into Robert Able opened a lot of different leads but didn't expand beyond that. Harry didn't mention it to Oak.

He was losing his mind in boredom. He couldn't figure out how anyone lived like this. Event after party after meeting after happy hour after conference, ninety percent of which were meaningless. Oak was in his element but Harry felt like a fish drying on a dock.

He also realized that the world of high finance was minuscule. He didn't see why the same fifty people had to keep meeting each other in different places and configurations, but apparently they did and they spent a lot of money to do so.

He even saw Angela with Sophie trailing behind a few times, her short legs trying to keep up with Angela's long strides, but only just glimpses here and there, barely enough time to wave.

"Sometimes I get so wrapped up in up in muggle money and drama that I almost forget that I have the wizarding world's most influential snoring away in my guest bedroom."

"Merlin, no. I'm not going to get involved in one of your schemes."

"Why ever not? You have plenty of money, don't you? The Potter fortune, the Black family fortune, the money from the Order of Merlin, probably other stuff that isn't common knowledge. And what are you doing with it all, letting the greedy goblins use it and all the while they don't even grow your account for you, do they? Some interest here and there maybe. How can you even trust them with that money when you destroyed their bank with a bloody dragon anyway? Weren't they angry?"

Harry swallowed back a few responses to this. He wasn't going to explain his financial situation. "I know your true motivation is deep concern for my well being, Oak, but I'm doing just fine."

He sighed. "Let me know when you want to grow your money instead of letting it just sit there, stagnating. Money makes money, Potter, let it work for you."

The next morning Harry stood waiting by the front door. "Where to today? A thrilling luncheon? Perhaps a conference about global, I don't know, side expenditure or whatever?"

"The greater London young business start up expedition."

"You can't be serious?"

Oak looked at him in surprise. "Sometimes people have really good ideas and know nothing of financing. I've gotten some of my highest account turnouts from these things."

"No, I mean, remember how someone is trying to kill you? Perhaps going to a well publicized event full of unknown people and with minimal security is, you know, a tad risky?

His mouth fell open in genuine shock. "But we've gone to plenty of events full of people pretty much every day this week?"

"Yes, closed, indoor events with security and guests lists and where everyone knows each other, or at least knows of each other. Not a giant crowd of strangers where someone can come out and curse you without it being very obvious."

"Hadn't thought of that. But isn't that why you've been using my water and electricity this last week? To protect me from such things?"

"How do expect me to control and monitor an unknown crowd? I'm one person."

"No you're not. You're Harry Potter, living legend."

He turned on his heel, apparating.

"Damn it."

Harry waved his wand in complex loops, concentrating, feeling the thrum of the spell following Oak's apparition and landing on its final location. He concentrated on that thrum, turning on his heel and appearing in an alcove in a dark alley. He stepped into the alley and saw Oak leaning against the wall, looking impressed.

"I heard Aurors could do that, but seeing it done is another thing entire…"

Harry stalked up to Oak, whose ever present smirk was starting to slip off his face. "Am I a joke to you? No, never mind, I know I am, everyone is." He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning into Oak's space. "Then are the death threats a joke to you? If they are then why the fuck am I here? Should I leave? I should leave. What an incredible waste of my time." Harry moved to turn on his heel but felt Oak's large hand on his shoulder.

"This is what I was talking about Bean Pole, you're too serious." Oak reached out with his other hand to Harry's other shoulder and gripped in a firmer way than was entirely friendly. "I just said that I knew Aurors could follow. I knew you'd be right behind me." He stepped in closer, looming over Harry, his casual smirk not reaching his calculating eyes.

Harry knew power moves when he saw them, could smell an intimidation tactic a mile way. Oak was an impressive loomer, something dangerous in his eyes, his hands an oppressive weight on his shoulders. He seemed larger than even his impressive size made he look.

Harry had faced worse when his was 11.

"I think our time playing boss and assistant has muddled your brain." Harry shrugged his hands off and stepped in closer. "I don't work for you, Oak, I'm not your servant, your lackey, or your friend. I am here to protect you and to help take a person with murderous intent out of society. You try something like that again, I will pull security for you immediately. Is that clear?"

Oak frowned, pausing a long minute before breaking eye contact and stepping back, brushing down Harry's tense shoulders lightly. "Okay, clear. Sorry to scare you so, Mr. Potter."

Harry scowled, stepping back as well. "I don't think that going to this event is a good idea."

Oak adjusted his rings, straightened his sport jacket sleeves, and combed his hands through his hair before sighing and saying, "Well, despite now knowing that you can be a scary little shit, I'm dead serious about getting some of my best deals from these things. The whole reason why I've even bothered with asking for a bodyguard instead of having a very low key, long vacation while you all sort this out is because this is a very important time of year for me, for business. I am the CEO, the leader, a pivotal shareholder in a number of businesses who employ, all said, somewhere over 100,000 people. I know that you find me tiresome and what I do beneath you, but I, too, am serious about this."

Harry shifted his shoulders, feeling wrong footed. It was unsettling to see Oak as anything but smarmy and over-confident. They regarded each other across the alley for a few awkward moments. Harry put his wand back in his jacket pocket. "Fine, but we need to figure out a place with good visual of the whole area and you need to stay visible to me at all times."

Oak smirked a genuine, wide smirk. "I know just the place."

The support staff room was full of paper, coffee and people talking over each other, in conversation or on their mobile phones, this time sounding real rather than just pretend showy ones. Compared with the events and luncheons, the atmosphere was more serious and focused. Harry leaned against the window where he could see the whole event sprawled out in front of him. He used a surveillance charm on one eye of his glasses to track Oak's movements as he went from table to table, shaking hands, laughing and looming his way into other people's successes.

He felt a tap on his arm and looked around and then down to Sophie, who smiled up at him. "Why isn't my dear friend Henry?"

"Ah yes, nice to see you Sandra." He felt some tension leave his shoulders at the sight of her. She really did feel like the only sane person he's talked to this whole week.

She too leaned against the glass, staring down at the crowd. "I see your here for the great hunt."

"The great hunt?"

"Yes, you see, our bosses may seem human, but they are in fact just pterodactyls in disguise, swooping down and grabbing young inventors and entrepreneurs dreams and taking off with them, sometimes leaving the poor sods only 10 percent of it left if they are very stupid. Today, and most other days really, but today in particular, our bosses are in competition, trying to find the biggest, juiciest, slowest pray on the field."

He looked back out into the crowd, feeling suddenly more nervous for the people in Oak's line of vision.

Sophie leaned her head against the glass, her face and slight reflection mirroring the same frown. He glanced between her and Oak's wide smile in his glasses lens. "Is Angela being at all nicer to you?"

Sophie glanced down at the phone clutched in her hand. "Before me, she went through three assistants in 5 months. I'm the idiot that's hung around for almost two years. I thought that if I stuck it out I might be able to get some real world information, network, build a solid base before I went back to Uni to go into finance. You want to know something stupid?"

He nodded, shifting his weight to better look at her. "I don't even want to go into finance any more. I've never seen such miserable people. They never rest, they're never satisfied, their personal relationships are shit, their hobbies aren't even really hobbies but just more opportunity to talk about business in even more settings. But I don't want to go to school just for going to school's sake and I don't know what I want to do anymore. This job pays loads better than any other for my experience and education level, so…"

"So you just deal with her." Harry said, wishing that Angela would just be nicer.

"It's not all Angela's fault, you know. She's a stone cold bitch for sure, don't get me wrong, but I think I truly am terrible at this job. She has to correct me all the time and not always for silly reasons. But I'm the only one who's stuck around, so I don't think she wants to get rid of me either. It's basically like we're stuck with each other." She bumped her head against the glass, once. "How grotesque."

Harry watched with one eye as Oak threw back his head and laughed, slapping someone on the back and with the other watched Sophie pull herself away from the glass and stand up straight. "Enough of that. Gross. Self pity, bleh." She shook her head like she was trying to shake off water, her hair readily flying every which way before settling back by her elbows.

"How did you end up as Oak's assistant?" She tucked her hands into the hidden pockets of her blue cotton dress and rocked back on her heels, her head tilted a little to the side.

He considered her for a long moment before straightening up himself. "I should probably come clean to you, really, I'm not Oak's assistant…"

"You're his lover?" She said, a statement more than a question despite her voice lifting at the end of the sentence.

Harry choked, the air in his lungs seemingly disappearing all at once. He opened his mouth to speak several times but he couldn't seem to form a sentence. He realized all he was doing was opening and closing his mouth and shaking his head over and over. Sophie stopped rocking on her heels, her face turning red. "You're not?"

"No." His voice sounded a little strangled. "No, why on earth would you think that?"

She looked down at the ground, her cheeks bright pink. "Well, there has been rumours… Someone heard Oak say to you that you should contact someone when you all get back to the apartment, which kind of sounds like you two live together. And then, well, he is very handsy with you."

"He's handsy with everyone!"

She nodded, shrugging, "And you never have a phone or any papers or anything with you, so, it didn't seem like you were working with him on a business matter, necessarily."

It was Harry's turn to rock back on his heels. He pictured Ron being here, hearing all this. He would never let it go, not ever. But he wasn't here. At least there was that small blessing.

"There's nothing wrong with being gay, you know," She frowned at him, some of the color fading out of her face.

"Of course not, that's not so much the issue," He said, his hand waving it away, "it's just, Oak, of all people?"

She laughed, shrugging again. "The rumour mill in this small part of the world is fast, presumptuous, and often wrong, gladly this time. So if your not his assistant and not his lover, than what are you?"

"His bodyguard."

She laughed again, raising her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue after his joke, but Harry didn't have anything to add, as he wasn't joking.

She flushed again, "Damn, I really just keep putting my foot in it today, I'm sorry. It's just that, well, that - "

"That I'm a twig man and Oak is a giant?"

She scrunched her nose. "You aren't at all twiggy, more, I don't know, wiry, but, um, basically, yes."

"I'll have you know that I am very handy in flight, better than Oak."

"You have some martial arts training?"

"Something like that. But also real bodyguards aren't like bouncers or something. It's ninety-nine percent surveillance and very, very boring."

She leaned forward, speaking quieter to him, "Should I leave then? Am I distracting you?"

"No, not really, I'm still in contact and watching."

She looked around his face, looking for a wire to an earpiece or anything else like that, he thinks.

"How?"

"It's a trade secret." He wasn't lying, really.

She squinted her eyes and shrugged. "Do you know -"

Her phone started ringing, an eight bit Darth Vader theme getting louder.

"Sorry, hold on. Yes Angela? You need me to find Oak's assistant? Ah, you're in luck, he's right here." She paused as Angela said something, then rolled her eyes, "We're just talking. We need to find Oak and keep him there and then let you know? Well, sure, but what should be say...Yes, no, I mean to say how should we… fine, I'll think of something. Bye."

She looked up at him with raised eyebrows. "Would your super secret surveillance methods happen to know where Oak is? Apparently I need to corner him for Angela until she can come do it herself."

"As matter of fact, I do."

Oak watched Harry coming with a look concern on his face. He was concerned enough to stop talking to whoever he was talking to and walk closer to him. "Has something happened?"

"No, not what you are thinking of, but..." Harry gestured to Sophie behind him who had her phone to her ear and was saying, "We found him, northwest corner by the 'The Future is Now!' Internet tent. Bye."

She flipped her phone closed and stepped around Harry to shake Oak's hand. "Heeeelloooo! My name is Sophie and I work for Angela Weber. She wants to talk to you about something very import -"

"Oh no, not that she beast. Look, I know you're just doing what she says, but I do not want to be cornered by that bat of a -"

"You speak so sweetly, Oak, do go on."

His fists clenched along with his jaw, eyes rolled toward the ceiling, but as he turned, his face broke into a big smile. "Ah, Angela, you look as beautiful as ever. Is that a Romano?"

"Yes." She looked like she was wearing a long, long brown t-shirt.

Harry and Sophie moved to the side, watching them talk as though watching a sporting event.

"Oak, you are still the executive of the Branch Group, correct?"

"Last I've heard."

"Good, as you know I have taken over the Ross Group." She smirked as a scowl took over his face.

"Yes, by complete deception, you -"

"Now, now darling, I didn't come over here just to rub it in your face. I have another point to make. There is a start up over there called Greenwich that just looks prime for the picking. However they work with people that have conflicts with the Ross Group. And before you get too excited, there are conflicts with the Branch Group, as well."

"So you want to do a splice? Why?"

Angela leaned forward and Harry thought of a snake, still before the killing strike. He and Sophie glanced at each other before looking back, eyebrows raised.

"I have my own reasons for wanting them, but yours, dear friend, is that if we don't take them, Robert Able will."

Oaks jaw clenched and unclenched before he groaned and said, "Fine, but you better be right about this company. Doing a splice on a failure would be humiliating. Where is the contract?"

"It's in this pile, find it." Angela didn't even look at Sophie, she just shoved the papers into her arms. "While she's doing that, we need to negotiate on a few things. We can work it out in the car."

"This one might be it, but…"

"Good." Angela snatched it out of her hands. "We must leave at once or we'll lose out. I have a car ready out front."

Harry and Oak looked at each other, a little alarmed. "Angela, I need to go a different way, tell me where to meet you and -"

"That won't work! Did I not just say that we need to sort out some details as we go? Come along, we must hurry." She started marching towards the door.

Oak started walking forward, Sophie and Harry walking close behind him. "Harry? What is the priority here?"

He sigh, rubbing his hands through his hair, "Just go, I'll figure out a way to monitor the situation and hope that Angela isn't the one making the threats."

"What?" Sophie looked startled.

Harry shook his head, not wanting to get into it. He watched as Angela and Oak climbed into a black car, noted the license plate and make, and turned towards Sophie. "Look, I have to go, I need to make sure that -"

She gasped, rushing after the car is it turned into traffic and spend down the street, waving her arms. The car rounded the corner, apparently not seeing her.

Harry jogged up to her. "What's happened?"

"Angela took the wrong contact! All these dumb things look so damn similar. Shit, she's going to be pissed."

"Isn't it her fault though, she's the one who just grabbed without looking?"

"Oh Harry, everything is my fault, even when it isn't, didn't you know?"

"Look, I need to go and keep track of him, I'll just take the contract to them, I'll be faster than you doing it."

"How? Besides, they're going to Angela's office, you don't have any of the passcodes to get into the building."

"Just tell me them."

"I absolutely can not."

Harry clenched his teeth, unable to think of a way to get out of this without explaining that he could just magic himself over and then magic himself through all the locked doors. Meanwhile Oak is just traveling around London completely exposed. The surveillance charm failed the moment they stepped out of the event. "Fine, let's grab a cab."

"I can't afford a cab, not enough cash, we have to get over to the tube station down the street…"

"That would take forever, no, I have cash, let's go."

They ran over to the line of cabs outside of the event centre. Sophie, her voice tight with nerves, told the cabbie the address of Angela's building. They pulled smoothly into traffic as Sophie wrung her hands. "Maybe she'll finally fire me."

"If she fires you, I'll kick her." Harry was feeling tense himself. Stupid muggles, stupid rules, it would be so much easier if he could just do magic right now. Maybe he could, then obliviate Sophie and the cabbie after.

"Thank you, Harry. I might join you." She touched his hand briefly, making him look at her. Her small smile didn't quite reach her nervous eyes.

Harry sighed, slumping back into his seat. He couldn't do that to her.

"I might kick her anyway. It's dangerous for Oak to be wandering around unprotected right now."

"Why, what's happened?"

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, considering. "I can't say." It would have to do.

She nodded, glancing out the window. The rest of the short ride was spent in a tense silence. Once they got to the nondescript gray concrete building, she bolted out door, leaving Harry to pay the cabbie in a rush.

He caught up with her in the lobby and they raced through the halls, people moving out of their way, startled, only pausing so Sophie could punch in codes into a little box by the heavy wooden doors.

Towards the end of one area was Oak and Angela, looking tense, their heads snapping up as Harry and Sophie jogged down the hallway. "There you are, you gave me the wrong bloody contract! Why didn't you answer your phone!"

To his surprise, Sophie put her hands on her hips and yelled back, "I didn't give you the wrong contract, you took the wrong one without even looking. Also, my phone died."

Angela stood straight, her voice gaining volume. "I have told a million times to charge that damned thing every night!"

"I do! But guess what, the damned thing still dies if you call it a million times a day!"

Oak and Harry glanced at each other, uncomfortable.

"I'll deal with you later." Angela said, her voice low and dangerous. "Right now you and Oak and I need to find the right contract and get this going. Now."

"I'm staying out here." Harry gestured to the hallway, speaking to Oak, who nodded, closing the conference room door behind him.

Harry leaned against the wall, letting out a long breath. He glanced around to see if there were any cameras, which there didn't appear to be, and pulled out his wand. "Homenum revelio." He spoke the incantation softly, and to his surprise the wand jerked not just toward the conference room where he knew there to be three people but also to the room next to it.

He figured it was probably the people that Angela and Oak wanted to "splice" but he didn't live this long by doing things half-arsed.

He tapped his wand against the door, making it see through from his side. Inside the conference room were two men leaning against the wall, their ears pressed against the panelling. Harry smirked, figuring they were trying to get as much information for the deal as possible. He moved to tap the door opaque again when he noticed one man's shoes were football cleats.

He had seen some truly odd fashion over the last week, but nothing like that. It didn't strike him as an eccentric muggle thing to wear.

No, it seemed much more like a wizard making a mistake.

Harry tensed, watching. The men pulled back from the wall, one nodding to the other, who pulled out a black, medium length wand and put the tip to the dark wood panelling.

Harry vanished the door and walked forward, his voice loud, commanding, "I'm an Auror with the Ministry of Magic, you two don't move except to put your wands on the ground, now."

The two men froze, shocked, glancing from Harry, to the door, to his wand leveled out in front of him. "I said drop your wands now, or I will use force."

The man furthest from him flung his arm forward, trying to aim. Harry dropped him with a silent stunner before moving on to his partner, who was trying to turn on his heel. Harry sent a rope to his wand hand, pulling the rope until the man gasped and dropped his wand. He jerked his wand up, sending more ropes forward to bind him with, but the man stumbled out of the way and grabbed the rope around his wrist and jerked, forcing Harry to move a step forward. The man used that second to reach for his wand but Harry dropped the rope and sent the wand flying to the other end of the room.

Not even hesitating for a second, the man ran and dove towards the door just as Oak, Angela and Sophie burst out of thier conference room, looking startled. "What on earth?" Angela stepped back as Sophie and Oak stepped forward. Harry hastally stowed his wand up his sleeve and yelled, "Stay back!" as he sprinted down the hallway, quickly gaining speed on the man who looked back at him and yelped. Harry flung himself forward and tackled him around the middle, both of them falling into a heap onto the floor. The man jerked underneath, trying to find purchase to roll away. Harry let his wand slide back into his hand, his torso hilding his actions from view from those behind him, and stunned him, leaving him limp on his side on the floor.

Groaning, he tucked his wand back up his sleeve as he stood up and turned to look down the hallway to other three. Sophie was standing shocked with her hands over her mouth. Angela was crouched low against the wall, her arms over her head. Oak was halfway down the hallway, looking pale.

"Oak, stay close to me, we need to call back up. Angela, Sophie, get out of here right now."

Sophie was still pale but dropped her hands and nodded, quickly turning around to Angela, speaking softly to her and grabbing her hand. She stood up shakily and the both of them moved to the emergence exit stairwell, Sophie glancing back at him with a frown and a small nod before the door closed behind them.

"Jesus Christ." Oak noticed the other man lying unconscious in the conference room.

Harry let his wand slide back into his hand and bound the man he tackled with rope.

"Expecto Patronum." Oak jumped as the stag burst out of Harry's wand. The glowing presence immediately calmed Harry, who leaned in to give his message. "There has been an attempted attack by two wizards on the second floor of 1254 King's Road, I need back up to make sure there aren't more. Floor is clear of muggles."

Harry stood up straight and looked the stag in the eye. "Go to the Auror Department."

The stag bowed and dissipated, taking the calming feeling with him.

Harry walked past Oak and bound the first man in rope as well.

Seconds later there was a series of loud cracks and suddenly the room had 5 more people in scarlet red robes in it. An older woman with a long plait of gray hair moved quickly towards him as the others ran out of the room, fanning out to check the perimeter.

"Where is the other one?"

"At the other end of the hallway."

She nodded, glancing at Oak over Harry's shoulder.

"Well, these two seem like they will give a solid lead, don't they?" She glanced back at Harry, giving him the smallest of smiles. "Nice job Potter."

Harry smiled back, but for some reason, despite the praise, despite the adrenaline still in his veins, he didn't feel all that happy. He mostly felt tired, done with the day, done with this whole last week. He mostly just wanted it to be over.


	3. No Wisdom in Wine

"So it was Robert Able."

"No, it was the people that he betrayed Oak for. Or at least that's what he's saying and it seems pretty convincing. It looks like their company, Investment Rise, or something like that, went under because of some underhanded tactics that Oak used and they held a grudge."

"And these people are wizards?"

"One of them is. Funny for Able, in a way, being used in a grudge between wizards and him not even knowing what they are."

Harry was sitting slumped on the sofa, Ron at the other end flipping through a quidditch magazine while Hermione read through a briefing on House Elves' reaction to a new bylaw she had helped push forward. She flipped it closed with a sigh, "And we're sure that it wasn't this Angela person at all? It just seems convenient that she dragged him away without his security to an area where wizards could easily attack him."

"Angela was a part of it, but very unknowingly. Turns out these people 'accidently' let it slip to her what a good deal this was knowing that she would rush to get it done. Apparently this deal was also supposed to hurt Oak in another related but different matter. They weren't expecting her to go to Oak with a deal at all, which pissed them off and they got sloppy."

"Seems rather convoluted."

"It was, but not surprising in a way. There is a lot of ego and money floating around in their world, I think it's enough to twist anybody. You all don't know what I had to deal with this last week and a half. Everyone was crazy, just… completely detached from reality and so into themselves. Except for this one girl, Sophie, whose boss treats her like rubbish. I do hope she quits."

"I told you he was odious." Hermione smirked at Ron, who made a face back.

"You know, I still don't know how I feel about him, odious seems strong though." Harry sprawled out further on the couch, accidently kicking Ron's arm and sending his quidditch magazine flying. "Oh, sorry Ron, I -"

"Oi!" Ron socked Harry in the leg. Harry retaliated by kicking Ron's shoulder. Ron grabbed his foot and started shoving his leg back, trying to roll him of the couch. Harry flailed trying to stay on.

"Hey, I'm just trying to spread out you -"

"Plenty of room on the floor, then."

Harry put his other foot in his face, pushing him back.

"Grr offf me you wanker." Ron wouldn't let go.

"You two are horrendous to live with." Hermione was standing over them, wand gripped loosely in her hand, both of which were on her hips.

Ron and Harry moved away from each other right away.

"You don't mean that, do you?" Ron asked, rubbing his face where Harry's foot was.

Harry rubbed his leg, looking at Hermione with wide eyes, "What would we do without you though? Ron and I would have to murder each other."

"And it seems stupid for us all to survive the war just for Harry and I to kill each other, doesn't it Hermione?"

She slowly stepped back to the sofa she was on, a small smile on her face. "You two managed to sleep in a room together with three other boys for six years just fine."

Harry and Ron shook their heads, both slumping back on the couch. "We didn't though, it was a right nightmare."

"God, do you remember how bad Seamus' socks smelled?"

"And how loudly Neville snored?"

"Dean had some sort stomach problem, I swear, his gas was a complete other level."

"Plus you talked in your sleep."

"I did not!"

"Did so, it was always about food."

"You liar! Beside, you were the one who would wake up shouting all the time."

"Excuse me for having Voldemort in my head."

"No, I don't think I will."

Harry shook his head at Ron's grin, "Point is, never leave us Hermione."

"Right? We'd never think to get those vanilla oil stick things."

"Or that enchanted heated bath matt?"

"Right, that thing's brillant."

Hermione picked back up her briefing. "I'll stick around a little longer then, I suppose."

Harry and Ron high fived.

~~~***~~~

"No, come on!"

"Tell me you aren't actually whinging, Potter?"

"Sorry. Just. Why do I have to meet Oak at his conference? Why can't he come here?"

"Because Oak doesn't have time to come here and we need his signature to close this case."

"He isn't actually busy. He just stands around all day harassing people."

"Potter."

"Right, sorry. Where is he?"

A few minutes later Harry apparated behind a dumpster close to the building where Oak was doing his business today. He transfigured his red robes into a red shirt and a pair of jeans with a suspiciously red hue. He never was very good at that spell. Sighing, he looked up at the reflective glass of the ten story tall structure. He thought that he was done with the muggle world of finance last week.

Harry entered the building, walking over to the pale gray reception desk where an older woman was listlessly flipping through some sort of registry. She glanced up at him briefly before returning to her flipping.

"Uh, hi. Do you happen to know which floor the conference is on?"

"The only conference still going is on the 6th floor. Are you registered? Do you have an ID?" She paused her flipping, marking something with a red pen.

"No, I'm just looking to drop off a paper to Mr. Oak. I'm his... his assistant."

"I can't let you go up unless you're registered. You'll have to call him."

"He doesn't have his mobile."

She marked another spot in the book and then glanced slowly up at him, not saying anything. The unspoken, that would be your problem, was written so clearly across her face Harry felt like he was a legilimens.

"Harry?"

He turned, surprised to see Sophie there, wearing an uncharacteristic black dress and simple ponytail. She looked worn out, tiredness darkening her eyes.

"What brings you here?"

"I need to get this to Oak to sign."

A small smile brightened her face a little, "Now you sound like a real assistant. I can go grab him if you like?"

"That would be great, thank you."

"Potter! What brings you here?" Oak, Angela trailing behind him, came into the lobby from the lift. He had a spring in his step, his massive form bringing to mind a bouncing boulder rolling towards Harry.

"Lisa sent me along to get this signed by you. You sign this and we'll be all settled, case closed."

Oak took the paper, leaning against the receptionist's counter. She finished flipping through one book and had started on another.

Both Harry and Oak jumped as suddenly from the other end of the lobby Sophie yelled, "FINE. Fine you great big withering bitch." Sophie shoved her mobile phone into Angela's hand as Harry felt his jaw drop.

Angela's shock quickly changed into anger while Sophie dug around in her purse. "You. Are. FIRED."

"No shit." She handed over a ring of keys and a planner as well. "It wasn't like I was ever going to get a good reference from you anyway, Angela."

"Idiot child, there wouldn't be anything good to say." Her tall frame, wrapped in a gray feathered tunic, leaned over Sophie, giving an impression of a some kind of bird of prey.

"I would tell you to have a nice life, but you've already ruined the majority of it, so, too late."

Sophie turned on her heel and exited the lobby doors, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and letting it swing over her shoulder as the door closed behind her.

Oak and Harry stared at each other in the stunned silence of the lobby. The receptionist continued to flip through her book.

"Hurry and sign it, I want to catch up to her."

Oak glanced at Angela, who was still standing where Sophie had left her, then turned and studied Harry's face, his frown slowly broadening into a wide grin. He signed it with a flourish. "Go take what's yours."

Harry rolled his eyes but took the paper and turned, jogging lightly towards the lobby doors.

"See you Potter! Don't forget what I said about growing your money."

"Yeah, see you Oak." He didn't glance back as he left.

He hurriedly ducked behind a tall pine tree that was growing close to the brick base of the building and sent the memo flying with a flick of his wand. He watched it disappear, the small white speck quickly melting into the wide expanse of blue.

He walked back out to the side walk, wondering which way she would have gone. He choose left, which became the apparent right choice right away.

Sophie was leaning against the wall, crying her eyes out.

She saw him walking toward her and covered her face, wailing out, "Oh Jesus, you saw all of that and now you," She took a deep, shaky breath, wiping at her face, "you get to see me blubber like a complete m-moron too."

"You were so cool in there." Harry leaned against the wall too, patting her shoulder.

She took a few more deep breaths, her small, fair face splotchy, her dark eyes looking like spilled ink as she blinked away her last few tears.

She took a tissue from out of her purse, dabbing at her eyes, "Was I? I felt like a right jerk, yelling at her like that."

Harry shrugged. "Angela has always talked down to you. It was nice to see you tell her where to stick it."

Sophie contemplated him for a moment, her head tilted to the side. "Do you want to go grab a drink? I know it's a Wednesday, but I could really use one."

"I have tomorrow off, even, so works for me." Harry grinned, looking around. "Don't know this part of town very well though."

Sophie gave a short scoffing sort of laugh. "I guess I have tomorrow off too. If we walk five or so minutes, there's a street with a few pubs lining it."

They walked in silence, Sophie still getting her breathing under control. There wasn't a transition so much as a sudden switch from glass, modern office buildings to squatter older brick buildings. There was grime between their stones, their red roofs were missing a few shingles, but they were well loved and cared for. Harry already felt better.

"I'm not sure why, but those modern office buildings kind of give me a headache."

"It's the light." She looked up at him, squinting against the setting sun behind him. "We all love light airy rooms over dark, dank ones, but the architects forgot that we need to have a break sometimes too. Light is a nuisance without shadows."

"That sounds sort of philosophical. Deep. Talk about duality next."

She lightly elbowed him, smiling. "They're overly fond of the colour gray, as well."

"It makes me kind of sleepy."

"Yeah, but imagine if they had made them, like, bright red and orange though."

Harry shuddered, "Good point."

They glanced into the dim, largely empty room of the first pub they crossed and looked each other, shrugging, and entered, sitting at a table in the corner.

"Do you like those kind of buildings?"

"Like the one we were just in? Not so much, they feel very industrial. They're the modern factory, in their own way. But I do like current architecture, all the glass and sharp angles and subtle, interesting textures. If done right, it can give off a great atmosphere; relaxed, gentle, understated, but with a underlying sense of power and wealth. I think it's very classy when you walk into a room and you can practically hear it saying, 'I know most people can't tell that I have Italian marble along one wall, but I know, so show some respect.'"

A waitress swung by and they ordered a vodka soda and an ale. When she came back with them, Harry looked between the vodka and the small girl next to him and wondered how that was going to go.

"Why don't you go into architecture or interior design, then, you seemed pretty interested in that?"

Sophie swung back a huge swing of her vodka. "I am interested in that. I also like history, politics, art, music, and astronomy. I used to like finance a lot too but, we can see how that all turned out." She took another deep drink, grimacing. "But having a lot of interests doesn't exactly equate directly into a field of study I'd enjoy. Even if I find a field of study I do enjoy, that certainly doesn't translate into a position I'd enjoy either."

Harry sipped his drink, nodding.

She ordered another, sipping slower now. "How'd you know you wanted to be a bodyguard?"

"I don't know that I do." It was the first time he admitted this to himself, let alone out loud, but somehow saying it to a muggle who didn't even know what he actually was allowed the thought to come out to the light of day from where it had been slowly growing as a seed in the dark, unexplored parts of his mind.

She raised her eyebrows, her shoulders less tense than they were before the drink. "You were really good at it though, the other day. I can see what you mean by you being pretty handy in a fight. You looked..." She paused, stirring her drink with her little black straw, her face getting a little pinker, "rather heroic. Like you were meant to be tearing off after some dubious fellow. It was somehow fitting."

"I've wanted to be an Aur- a, uh, a policy officer, since I was at Ho-at school. It felt like the natural choice for me."

"Why didn't you then?"

"I did. I mean, I am, still, now, in law enforcement."

"I thought you were a bodyguard though? But you're a bobby?" She was making fast progress through her second drink. Harry noticed his was going quickly as well, for him. He wasn't much of a drinker, usually. He ordered a whiskey to sip a little slower. "No, I'm part of a, um, well, how to say this. A separate force. I don't always guard people."

She scooted closer, her face staying a soft pink around her checks. She moved her mouth closer to his ear, her hair lightly brushing his forearm. Her breath was sweet and bitter all at once as she whispered, "Are you a spy, Harry?"

He laughed, knocking back his drink, forgetting that it's whiskey. He grimaced and started choking. Sophie giggled, hitting his back lightly.

He gasped, drinking down half of his glass of water. "No, I'd be a terrible spy. As you can see."

"Yeah, that wasn't too much like James Bond." Her smile was bright. "So Harry's your real name, then?"

"Of course. My name's Harry Potter."

"Mine's Sophie Wade."

"Pleasure to meet you." Harry reached his hand out.

"Mutual." They shook hands, her small one surprisingly warm and firm in his. They broke down into giggles.

The night seem to make less sense as it went on, though there was a lot of laughing.

Harry woke to the sound of Ron and Hermione squabbling, followed quickly by the feeling of his brain throbbing. Groaning, he rolled onto his back. He rubbed his face, knocking his glasses off. Apparently he had slept with them on. It felt like there was some sort of stringy, grainy texture under his bare back, but he ignored it for now, the light too bright for his eyes.

"You've got it wrong, Hermione. There can't be a girl in there. Harry's just… he just not that cool okay?"

"Then whose shoes are those Ron?"

"Maybe he stole them?"

"You think that your friend being a women's shoe thief is more likely than him bringing a girl home?"

Harry tried to think between the throbbing in his brain, but it was proving to be difficult. He remembered a girl, Sophie, they were laughing, having a good time. He remembered getting more drinks at a different pub and walking along a fountain with bright shining lights, her laughing scream as he slipped, the cold water a shock, but then kind of refreshing…

He sat up, he's stomach sour and rolling. He looked over and down and saw Sophie, her hair spread out across the bed, her body curled up into itself. She looked like a napping cat. Harry looked down at his bare chest nervously, lifted the blanket, and sighed with relief that he had pajama bottoms on. Glancing over, Sophie was still wearing the black tights and dress she wore yesterday.

"I'm going in."

"No, Ron, don't -"

The door swung open and bounced off the wall. Ron stood in the middle of the door, his mouth open in shock, as Hermione peered around his shoulder, her hand covering her smile.

Sophie sat up, blinking blearily around the room, her hair a halo of golden chaos around her head. "What? Harry, is this…"

"This is my place. Uh, looks like we had a tad too much last night."

She looked over at him, her brain clearly still starting up, then back to Ron and Hermione still in the door frame. "Hullo."

Ron coughed, uncomfortable. "Sorry. Uh, sorry. We didn't think-"

"Don't misunderstand, nothing happened-" Sophie said quickly, but Ron already closed the door.

She looked back at him again, pale and groggy in the morning light. "You're always seeing me at my best."

He grimaced. "You seem better off than me." He was still considering puking.

"I think I puked last night. Ah well, better out than in with my poor liver trying to process it all. I also ate, like, three kabobs, so…" She stretched and then put her hair into a loose, messy bun that barely contained the storm of wavy hair wanting to break out and float freely around her head.

"I should probably go. But in case you were worried or don't remember, nothing, you know, happened. We drank, we walked around, I puked and ate three kabobs, you fell into a fountain which has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen, then we slooshed our way to your place and I think I fell asleep trying to help you put on a shirt. So all and all, not a bad night."

She stood up, swaying slightly. Harry felt less like he was in immediate danger of puking. "You want to stay for breakfast?"

She touched the edge of the bed and considered him for a moment. "Nah, I'm not much up for socialising at the moment and your roommates looked like they want to interrogate you. But thank you for the fun night, I needed that before all the stress hits."

"Would you like my number, you can use it as some sort of reference, since you'll be needing one."

Her face light up with her wide, genuine smile. "That would be lovely, thank you."

He nodded then stopped as his head throbbed worse. "I don't remember it to be honest, let's go out there and ask Hermione."

Ron and Hermione were talking on the sofa, their heads bent together, speaking in low voices. They looked up as they entered.

Harry spoke first. "Hermione, what's our phone number?"

"It's -"

"Hold on, sorry!" Sophie looked around, finding her purse by the entry table. She pulled out a pen and an old receipt. "I'm ready."

She wrote down the numbers swiftly as Hermione said them, her handwriting precise and neat.

"Thank you. Nice to, uh, meet you both. And thank you again Harry, this will be helpful." Sophie waved to everybody as she left, slipping on her shoes but not bothering to tie them. They all waved back until the door clicked closed behind her.

Harry turned to look back and Ron and Hermione, who for all the world looked like disapproving parents, Hermione with her eyebrows raised, Ron with arms crossed over his chest and a frown across his face.

"Is she a muggle?" The question came from Hermione.

Harry raised his eyebrows back at her. "Surely you don't disapprove of me hanging out with a muggle?"

She uncrossed her arms with a sigh. "Of course not, but sleeping with a woman who you have to keep secrets from is a little -"

"We didn't sleep with each other. I mean, we did, but not that way. For such a tiny person she sure can pack away the drinks. Things got a little out of hand last night, but only in the vomiting, falling into fountains kind of way."

Ron leaned forward, "She has our number now, do you plan on seeing her again?"

Harry sat down, rubbing his temples. "What are you, my parents? I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Yes you do, what are you going to do, not explain it to us?"

"Keep a secret muggle girlfriend?"

"Be sneaky and hide seeing her?"

"Lie to us about it? And what for? Besides, you're the worst liar on the entire planet."

"I am not."

"Two words. Roonil Wazlib."

"...Fine, but I don't know why you all are being like this, what's the big deal?"

"She's the first girl you've seen since you and Ginny…" Hermione glanced between Ron and Harry who looked away from each other, then gave a small cough, "and besides that, what do you plan to do about the statute of secrecy?"

He sighed, sitting back and closing his eyes, "I'll tell her after we have our first child."

Hermione's, "What?!" was decidedly higher pitched than her usual voice.

Harry smiled, he's eyes still closed. "I just made a friend, I'm not trying to date her anyway. It's not so hard to keep secrets from casual acquaintances or even friends and it doesn't even always happen on purpose." He groaned and stood up, making his way over to a small cupboard in the corner of the room. "Think about it. What's Dean's stepdad's name, Ron?" He looked around and brought out a vile of a purple potion and tried not to gag as he pulled the stopper, letting the sickly grape scent of the hangover potion waff up to him.

"Isn't it… huh, Rick, no, Steve? Blimey, you're right." Ron sat back with a dumbfounded look on his face. "We lived with him for six years, too."

Harry downed the potion, grimacing, then let out a burp that continued for sometime, expelling vapor that reeked of alcohol and the grape scent of the potion. Hermione made a face and waved her wand, clearing the air, "You could have done that in the bathroom you know?"

He shrugged, flopping back down on the couch, feeling loads better but still tired. He wondered how late they got back last night.

"...Anyway, I see your point, Harry, but isn't, you know, your entire magical identity kind of a lot to just 'not bring up' to somebody?"

He waved his wand lazily, his glasses less zooming from his room and more wobbling to him.

"I was kind of surprised, it wasn't as important as you'd think it would be."

Harry, nestling further into the couch and grabbing a quidditch magazine, missed Hermione's slight concerned frown.

"Hello?"

Harry held the phone to his ear, feeling awkward. It had been a long time since he last did this. It was mostly Hermione who used it to talk to her parents.

"Henry?"

"Sandra?"

They both laughed, "What can I do for you?"

"I have an interview for a receptionist position at a solicitor's office and will be giving you their number, if that's alright?"

"Of course, but what should I say I am to you? Somehow I don't think saying friend would be too professional."

"Exactly, so I wanted to talk about that too. The best lies are things closest to the truth right? Maybe you can say that you're a colleague?"

"Try to keep it vague? Something like we worked in the same offices or something?"

"Yeah, that'd be perfect."

"Alright. Do you want me to bring up that Angela was, I don't know, very unprofessional to you or something, if they ask how you worked with her? I imagine they'll bring it up."

"I, I guess so. Try not to linger on it too long though, as I don't want the call to be too focused on the negative."

Harry frowned, suddenly nervous about this favour. Like Ron and Hermione said, he wasn't the best at lying and smooth talking.

"Thank you so much, Harry. I really needed some sort of recent reference." Her voice was soft with sincerity. "I doubt that they'll even contact you, places sometimes don't, but I'll have to buy you a drink as a thank you sometime anyway."

Harry almost tasted the purple horror of the hangover potion lingering on his lips, even though it had already been a week, and shuddered. "God no, drinking with you is a hazard."

Her laugh was light and sweet through the phone. "But there are so many more fountains for you to fall into."

Harry scoffed, "How about lunch instead?"

"Deal. Thank you again, Harry."

"No problem at all, I'll see you."

They hung up, Harry smiling to himself as he walked into the kitchen, making himself coffee before he had to go to work. As he considered the day ahead of him, paperwork, and strange, stilted fawning, and more paperwork, the smile slipped off of his face, leaving him frowning into his coffee cup.


	4. Lunch

"We'll need a couple of Aurors to accompany Shacklebolt today for the press conference. Let's see -" Harry rolled his eyes, knowing it was coming. "Potter, it looks like you have time today, you just finished up that Widower case...and we'll get some new blood in there, Robertson, you'll accompany him. Listen to what Potter says." A fresh faced recruit, a week out from training, nodded emphatically in front of him, his blond curly hair bouncing.

Lisa dismissed the group, who all turned to their newly assigned partners, chatter picking up in the small space. The new guy strained his neck, standing on his toes to try and find him. Harry tapped on his shoulder. "Robertson?"

Robertson turned, his mouth falling open a little, his face turning red. "Yes, uh, it's - it's an honor to meet you Mr. Potter, sir!"

"Just Potter will do, or Harry, whatever. I'm only 20, no reason to be so formal."

Robertson looked a little lost, his dark blue eyes widening, "But - but…"

Harry sighed and clapped him on the shoulder, turning them towards the door. "Let's just go. We'll head to Kingsley's office."

Robertson kept glancing at him out of the corner of his eye as they went down in the lift, a cloud of memos floating overhead, exiting as people got on and off and joined Robertson in his furtive glances. There was a reason why Harry rarely left the Auror department to travel around the Ministry.

They got to the plush, purple antechamber to the minister's office to see his secretary scribbling quickly across a memo. He glanced up briefly, then did a double take. "Ah, Mr. Potter. Here to accompany the Minister to the opening?"

"Yes, how are you doing Huxley?"

"Busy as ever sir. I'll let the Minister know you're here. Just a minute."

Harry turned to gesture toward Robertson to introduce him, but Huxley was already entering Kingsley's office through a small side door.

Rubbing the back of his neck he looked at Robertson, he said "Sorry about that, I'll introduce you when they come out."

"No worries." He didn't look particularly put out, watching the door with interest for Shacklebolt to come out.

He did a few minutes later, saying something in undertones to Huxley, who nodded, turning back into Kingsley's office.

Kingsley looked up and smiled broadly at Harry, his deep blue robes dragging a little behind him, his round hat mostly gold with a few embroidered blue starts on the front. "Harry! How have you been? Still dealing with Ron and Hermione's bickering?"

Harry laughed as Kingsley clapped him on the shoulder. "How'd you know?"

"Hermione was complaining to me about it just a little bit ago. They haven't changed at all, have they?"

They were leaving the office, Robertson trailing behind them. Kingsley glanced back at him. "I don't recognise you, I'm afraid, are you new? "

"Ah yes, sorry, this is Robertson, Kingsley, he just finished the Auror exams last week."

They stood in the Minister's personal elevator, raising to the atrium level. Kingsley reached his hand out to Robertson, who swallowed nervously, not so successful in his attempt to be discreet wiping his hand on his robes before shaking. "It's an honor to meet you, sir."

"It's an honor to have you serving. Always exciting to have new blood, isn't it Harry?"

He grinned at Robertson's star struck face. "Of course."

They got out and walked to the floo gates, Harry glancing at the paper he was given with the assignment. "It says here that we are flooing to a solicitors office right next to the location so that you don't ruin the moment by coming out of new hospital, Kingsley. The preliminary team already checked everything out, Robertson, so everything should be fine, but I'll go first, give me about 30 seconds to make sure it's okay to go. Wait for the fire to flash blue, okay? Then you can go," he gestured to Kingsley, who was reading his speech and nodding vaguely. "Then you follow." Robertson nodded, his face very serious. Harry had to fight the urge to laugh.

He went through the floo, coming out on his feet, glancing around. The room was empty of people but filled with books, floor to ceiling. A quill was copying something onto a long piece of parchment. Harry turned toward the fire and made a sharp jabbing motion, the fire turning a bright, icy blue. A few seconds later Kingsley spun out, his mouth in a tight line. He famously hated flooing. Harry tapped him with his wand, all the ash proofing off his face and clothes and then did the same to himself.

"Thanks."

Harry nodded as Robertson spun out of the floo, losing his balance a little, catching himself on the mantle. He flushed as they all walked towards the door.

"You know, the first time I flooed I accidentally ended up in Knockturn Alley?"

Robertson raised his eyebrows while Kingsley chuckled. "How'd you manage that?"

"I said diagonally, sent me right to Borgin and Burkes."

"How old were you?"

"Twelve."

Kingsley shook his head. "That must have been frightening, that place was a cesspool. I was happy to close it down."

They walked over to the stage area, Harry wordlessly falling back, him and Robertson looking around for anything off, Robertson's face looking very intense. Harry turned to look behind the stage so he wouldn't see him smile.

After Kingsley spoke quietly to a few people and shook hands, he moved up toward the stage. Harry sighed and followed, Robertson looking confused. "Stay on the steps, keep an eye on the crowd."

"You're going on the stage? Why?"

Harry frowned at him, uncertain of how to answer, how honest to be. He glanced back at Kingsley, who ticked his head to the side, telling Harry to hurry up as the cameras started going off. "Because that's where he wants me."

Harry turned, leaving Robertson on the stairs, and stood silent and unsmiling behind Kingsley, knowing that cameras were now angled to capture Kingsley's broad smile and waving hand, the hospital sign, and Harry's stoic face as he stood behind him.

"You could always tell Kingsley that you don't want to be used that way." Hermione closed the newspaper, placing the photo that looked exactly as Harry predicted it would face down on the table.

Harry shrugged, sipping his tea. "I do support Kingsley largely, he's done a lot of good. I think if it had been anyone else, they would have tried a lot more to make me be the new Ministry's poster boy and much more blunty, too. So what if I happen to be standing behind Kingsley in some photos? Who cares if I seem to be quoted more often than other Aurors?"

"You care, that's why it matters." Hermione put her hand on his forearm, making him look up at her. "Have you ever felt comfortable at the Ministry?"

He hated it when she did this. Why couldn't she let him avoid things? "I don't particularly feel comfortable anywhere but here, to be honest."

Hermione squeezed his arm, once, her face dropping into a deeper concern. "Oh Harry. I didn't know."

He patted Hermione's hand, wishing he could take back saying that.

Ron swung the kitchen door open and paused, glancing between Hermione and Harry's serious faces. "Why do you both look so serious? Oh Merlin, what's happening now? Do we have to rob another bank? Find more horcruxes? Maybe overthrow the government?" He sat down with a thump.

Hermione let go of Harry's arm, a small smile lightening her face. "Much worse than that. We have to have reflective, sensitive talks about how we're feeling."

Ron shuddered, "I'd rather fight my way out of Gringotts again."

Harry and Hermione smiled at each other. Harry leaned forward on the table, "So Hermione, reflecting on your feelings, how do your feelings reflect the feelings about those other feelings, you know, those sensitive feelings from the past?"

Hermione leaned back in her chair, tapping her chin in contemplation. "They feel bad, very bad. I don't know, it's hard to make sense of it all, I really think that we need to dig into it. Somehow, I feel it's all Ron's fault, and that I need to really work with Ron through it for hours and hours, just analysing those feelings. Ron?"

Ron was already back by the door again. He didn't reply, just made a face, and walked quickly down the hallway.

"I better go follow him, he's too much fun to tease." Hermione stood up, grabbing her newspaper before heading to the door, where she paused. "All this teasing about talking about feelings aside, Harry, I do want to talk more about your not feeling comfortable anywhere. That's not a good thing to experience everywhere outside your flat."

He stood up and moved passed Hermione to the door, pausing in the doorway like Ron did, pulling a more exaggerated version of the face Ron made, before running full tilt down the hallway towards his room, Hermione's laugh carrying down the hallway after him, until he closed his door behind him.

The restaurant was eloquent, but not too posh and up on itself, just perfect for a small celebration. "You'll never believe who uses the solicitors at my new office?"

Harry twirled the pasta around his fork, looking at Sophie with raised eyebrows.

"Oak."

He rolled his eyes, that man had a veritable army of lawyers at his beck and call. "Is he nice to you?"

"Is he ever nice? Or mean? It's hard to pinpoint."

"True. Outside of Oak storming in and being Oak, is your new job better so far?"

Sophie took a small sip of her white wine. She seemed to be making a point of it, as though to say she could be a classy drinker too. "Yes, infinitely. I don't make as much, and that isn't great, but it's manageable. The work is boring and tedious but everyone treats me very well. I didn't know, before, that you could go a whole day at work without wanting to have a small cry in the toilet." She gave a little laugh, but Harry just frowned.

"That's terrible."

Sophie's smile turned softer, sadder. "I did learn from this though, something very important."

"What's that?"

"It's not worth it, the mild suffering. All the excuses you give yourself, why you should stay though you don't want to, the guilt, the fear, the sheer laziness of deciding the devil you know is better. It's so much better to leave. And now, all I keep thinking is that I should have left ages ago, how terrible it all was, now that I'm allowing myself to really look back at it. "

He stared at her, trying to swallow the thick feeling in his throat. He's voice came out rough still. "My ex said that. I mean, not exactly, but..."

Sophie's face softened as she leaned forward. "About you?"

"Yeah… I, I won't get into it. But, it was complicated, our relationship. We wanted to be together, but couldn't, then when we could, there was a lot of pressure because the timing didn't work before. I don't think I helped. I know I didn't, I should say. I just wanted it to be good, only good, which doesn't, can't work. I didn't allow us to be human." He could only look out the window, embarrassed. He couldn't figure out why he kept telling her these things he had barely told himself.

"You're still in love with her."

He turned to look at her, denial on his lips, but her face was pure sympathy. His lies died in his mouth. "I think I'll always love her a little. She's part of my adoptive family… hmm, that's weirder sounding than it actually is. I mean to say, Ron, the redhead from my flat? He's been my best mate since I was 11, his parents always looked after me, so did all his older brothers. Ginny, my ex, is his little sister."

"You live with your ex's older brother, who is also your best mate? That's… I mean, were things awkward between you two?"

"We...never really talked about it. We've been through a lot together; Ron, Hermione, and I. I think… I don't think Ron was happy with me for making his sister miserable. But I was making myself miserable too, so I don't think he got too angry with me. It's, look, I don't know why I'm prattling on about this anyway, I'm sorry. I don't know why I've brought this up. The point is, Ron and I don't need to rehash it because it's done."

Sophie looked down at the table and slowly drank more wine, thinking. The silence went on for a few agonising moments. Harry opened his mouth to change the topic to any topic at all but this, when Sophie spoke.

"When I was in primary school, I found out I was dyslexic, you know, where you have a hard time seeing letters correctly? I was put into special tutoring classes, my parents sent me to extra lessons sometimes during breaks as well. My dyslexia was pretty mild, and while it never goes away, I learned skills, methods, for how to cope with it. Now it doesn't affect my life much at all, I hardly think of it. In fact, I love reading probably more than anything else, though I'll never be very speedy a it.

"But the point is, I had to take separate reading classes from my friends, and to meet with tutors in my spare time. Even as a child I knew that wasn't normal, and felt like the stupidest person in my class. I got over it in a lot of ways. This never ending gap year aside, I was a very good student, almost obsessive. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't stupid, you know? At the time, I told myself that I was over it, I had moved past my dyslexia, that it was done. But it wasn't, because I wasn't done processing it. I wanted it to be done because we all want negative experiences done with as soon as possible, but it just doesn't work that way. By needing to prove my intelligence to myself all the time, I was still being driven, in some way, by that same old insecurity."

Harry stared at her earnest face and felt only frustration, though he didn't want to, and certainly didn't want to take it out on her. He didn't want to deal with it, any of it. He had won, hadn't he? He just wanted to be happy. "I want it to be done though."

Sophie looked into his eyes, moving from one to the other, back and forth, before nodding to herself. "Then, in many ways, you are. Regardless, I think I know why Ron looked kind of miffed when he burst into your room and saw me there, raising like the dead in a zombie movie."

Harry let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, his shoulders losing some of their tension. "Why's that?"

She smiled, twirling her pasta around her fork, "He was picturing you taking me home to meet everyone, little sister included. He was already anticipating the awkwardness, like a very strong stench wafting ever closer from far away."

Harry snorted, "That git acted like he was my father and I was a very rebellious teenager, like I don't live in the same flat as his girlfriend and him, the hypocrite. I had to tell them a million times that we were just drunk pillocks and I don't have any intention of dating you and we're just mates before he stopped giving me a disapproving look."

Harry twirled more pasta onto his fork, shaking his head, looking down, and missed the frown that took over Sophie's face, how she blinked rapidly a few times, and swallowed thickly. Harry didn't notice that her voice a little off, even after she cleared her throat, when she asked, "Ron and Hermione are dating?"

He looked up again, nodding. Her face was already back to normal. "If you count it by arguing, they've been dating since they met each other when they were eleven. But if you count it from kissing, It's been a little over three years."

"Did you all meet at the same place?"

"Yes, Hog, uh, um, our boarding school."

"Oooh, posh, a boarding school that starts with hog, apparently?"

He smiled, "Very posh. I was a legacy too."

She made a gagging noise.

He smiled wider. "It's a very small school, around two hundred students or so, called Hogan Wartmer's school for progress. So, being children, we clearly had to shorten it to Hogwarts."

"Only sensible." They smiled at each other from across the table.

Harry was a little pleased he was able to fib successfully, even though Ron was technically the one who came up with that back story.

"Imagine hating your child enough to call them Hogan Wartmer."

"It was founded like a thousand years ago. Didn't all parents hate their children back then?"

"School for progress probably just meant letting them learn to read before the plague took them."

"Our Hogwarts was a radical."

"You've been hanging out with Sophie a lot lately."

"Yeah, she's a good person."

Hermione had sprawled across the foot of his bed, her hair a wild storm around her head. She hadn't been home in two days. She turned to look at him blearily, somehow looking exhausted and wired at the same time.

"Were you able to save the bylaw then?"

"Barely, and a couple of things had to be altered." She let out a huge yawn, not bothering to cover her mouth. "I don't understand people. Why fight so hard to make it so you can physically punish house elves? How do you wake up in the morning and think, right, I want to kick the shit out of my house elf and no stuck up bint from the Ministry is going to tell me otherwise, without feeling like a monster? How do people justify these things to themselves?"

Harry sat back against his head board. Hermione never swore that much unless she was exhausted. "I imagine that they just don't consider house elves real. It's very easy for people to look at someone, even another person, and just utterly dismiss them as a separate, living person. People who in other situations would never hit a person would have no issue kicking one they deemed less than across a room." He thought back to his spidery cupboard and Dudley's large room, always filled to the brim with new things.

She frowned, shaking her head against the blanket, "That's the thing though, fine, if these people consider others beneath them and don't care much what happens to them, that's still wrong, but why then go and be unnecessarily cruel?"

"I think you already know the answer to that, don't you?" Harry shrugged.

"Power." They said at the same time, Harry with a sigh while Hermione more spat the word.

Ron walked passed the door, glancing in, before stopping and taking a step back. "There you are! And I come home to find you in my best mates bed, of all things." He flopped onto the bed as well, pillowing his head with Hermione's back.

"What can I say, he has a comfy bed."

"True. How've you been? You look knackered, when's the last time you slept, hmm?"

She sighed, reaching out for Ron's hand. "Too long."

"I'll make us something for dinner real quick and then you can sleep, Hermione." Harry said, thinking of what they had in the house.

"You're a saint, Harry."

"And what am I?" Ron asked while rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand.

"Chopped liver."

He tossed her hand aside, rolling over and reaching up to her side and tickled. She squawked a startled laugh, almost rolling off the side of the bed as Ron continued to tickle her.

"Gross." Harry stood up and left his room, turning back to watch his laughing friends roll around with a grin.

They followed him into the kitchen a few minutes later, their hair mussed, and sat down at the table.

"I was asking Harry about Sophie before we all got distracted. Or I should say, he changed the subject before I could ask more."

"You've been hanging out with her more lately, haven't you mate?"

Harry rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Yeah, like I said, she's fun, a good friend."

"Aren't you seeing her a lot for just a friend? She's also cute in a miniature kind of way. You can tell us if you're dating her."

"I'm not going to keep repeating myself on this." He slid the leftover roast into the oven and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Why aren't you dating her?" Hermione was resting her head on her hands, her elbows on the table. She looked too tired to beat about the bush.

"Can't men and women just be friends? We know the answer to that very well, Hermione."

"Sure, if they're just friends,which you two haven't been acting like. Besides, how do you know that she doesn't fancy you?"

He leaned against the oven. They have done a lot of things that might seem like dates to the outside eye; going to the cinema, parks, pubs and so on. He didn't even think about if she was reading it that way. She never seemed nervous, never had that awkward red face he associated with crushes. She didn't laugh too loud at his jokes, or touch his arm all the time or anything. She always seemed comfortable. The idea of running across a crowded common room to kiss her, passionately, unthinkingly, seemed absurd. He could picture her ducking, using her small stature to run low and out the room before anyone even knew something had happened. He smiled at the thought.

"You are even smiling at the thought of her Harry! Why are you being dense about this?"

"I'm not being dense, you just don't get it."

"Maybe I'd get it better if you invited her over?"

Harry opened his mouth to say his almost automatic no, but stopped, thinking. Why didn't he want to invite Sophie over? She could show them the good shows on the tele that Ron bought for some reason. She would probably get along well with Hermione, they both were bookworms. And she had a surprising sense of humour, he could picture her keeping pace with Ron out at a pub.

But still, despite knowing it wasn't entirely reasonable, he just didn't want to. "I'll think about it."

Hermione squinted at him while Ron shook his head.

Sophie shared a small flat close to the university she had considered going to before her "infinite gap year" with a student who was actually going to the university who was, apparently, never there. Her room was small, the plaster crumbling in the corners, but she kept it very neat and bright, her bedspread a vibrant blue with a yellow flower pattern across it, a light purple rug covering most of the stained carpet, the paintings on the wall all framed in white. Her small dark wardrobe had bright green vines painted across it.

Harry sat on the floor, his back against the wall, while Sophie spun slowly in her desk chair.

They were bored.

"How do you feel about going to a pub a few blocks over? It's nothing special, but I like it, very homey."

She was right, there was something simple about it, in the best meaning of the word. The barkeep was the owner, the walls covered with photos and things from his trips around the world. He had a slow smile and way of talking that made Harry feel less rushed. Everyone there was talking softly, sipping their drinks, relaxed.

They were at a standing table over in a corner by the window.

"You know, I've heard so much about Ron and Hermione that I feel like I know them already. But I don't think I've heard much about your family?"

She said this casually, looking out the window, her hand loose holding her drink. He could make up anything, there was already so much he was keeping from her, but he never lied to her about important things, just their details. And also magic.

He knew it would be a damper, but, "My parents died when I was a baby. I grew up with my aunt, uncle and cousin, but they weren't over fond of me."

Her head snapped around, looking at him with a sad sort of surprise. "I suppose you didn't talk about them for a reason, then. Sorry for being a damper." She shifted on her feet, "To lose both of them so early, I'm sorry. My aunt, my mum's sister, died in a car crash… my poor cousins were so…"

She was looking out the window again, frowning. Harry opened his mouth to say that his parents also died in a car crash, to repeat his family's lies, but somehow his words left him as the truth, "My parents were murdered." He grimaced. Considering how frequently he was lying to her by omission, he couldn't seem to lie to her directly too well.

She put her hand over her mouth, looking at him with searching eyes tinged with confusion. The question she wouldn't speak written clearly on her face.

Why?

Then her eyes widened on something behind Harry which made her duck low and scoot along the inside edge of the round table until she was standing at his side. He heard the door open behind him and he glanced over his shoulder, seeing a bloke with light brown hair around their age enter the pub, before he felt Sophie squeeze his arm and hiss his name. He looked down at her, bewildered. "Oh my God, Harry, it's my ex."

He immediately looked back over his shoulder to get a better look but she pulled his arm, "Don't look!"

He looked back down at her, her large dark eyes pleading. He was glad they already paid. "I'll sneak you out."

"You'd be my savior forever."

Harry rolled his eyes, grinning. He turned his back to her, her small frame hiding easily behind his larger one. He felt her hands bunching the back of his shirt as he took a step forward, her feet shuffling behind him. He walked sideways towards the door a few feet away, knowing that he must look like a looney, but no one was paying attention. He walked backward through the door, Sophie's forehead briefly touching his back, between his shoulder blades. The door closed in front of them.

They turned to look at each other, grinning.

"Thanks!"

"No problem. Bad break up?"

"You've no ide- "

"Sophie?"

Her ex was walking through the door, a frown on his plain face. She took a step closer, grabbing Harry's arm again. "I saw you through the window… How've you been?"

Harry and Sophie both turned to look at the window they were standing in front of, their mouths falling open. Harry felt especially stupid. He was supposed to guard people for a living.

She cleared her throat, letting go of Harry's arm and standing straighter. "Well." She didn't say anything further, her face cold in a way Harry had never seen on her before. The only person he had seen her be anything less than sunshiny to was Angela. That didn't bode well for this bloke's character.

Her ex shuffled, his frown deepening, looking away from Sophie to Harry. "New boyfriend?"

Sophie stiffened next to him, but it was Harry that spoke, "Yes."

She looked up at him quickly, but Harry didn't turn to look at her, maintaining eye contact.

His plain, passive face crumpled into something ugly, "Fine. Fair warning though, she might look all sweet and innocent, but she's a right bitch underneath it all."

He definitely didn't like this person. Harry took a step forward, not certain what he was going to do, but was startled into stopping by Sophie's loud, clear voice, the same voice she has used on Angela, "You're damn right I'm a bitch, you great prick. Why don't you hang around and see how big of a bitch I can be?"

She took sharp quick steps forward, pushing the sleeves of her jumper up, looking for all the world like she going to punch the git. The git's eyes widened and he took some steps back, putting his hand out in front of him. Harry reached forward, grabbing her by the upper arms, pulling her back towards him.

She didn't struggle, instead she pointed her finger at her ex. "Alden, I listened to your stupid sob story when you cheated on me. I was patient with you when you were being a tosser during your exams. I was a sweet little fool for you for almost a whole year. But you know what, this is my favorite pub, this is my neighborhood, and this -" she pointed her thumb over her shoulder, "is my favorite bloke after my Dad and brother, and you -" She jabbed back at him, "are a huge prick. If you think that you and your prickiness are going to scare me out of coming to this place, or walking around my neighborhood, or hanging out with him, then you have another thing coming, you hear me? I will yell you out of every pub I see you in, I swear to God!" She lunged forward again, Harry easily holding her back. He felt a strange mix of embarrassment, humour and nerves as the girl in his hands kicked her leg out. "Get out of here, shoo, flee, fuck off, you enormous twit."

This Alden person closed and opened his mouth a couple of times, his face turning red. He glanced around at the people staring at him. "You've completely gone round the twist." He turned, glancing back at them as he started to walk away, "Completely mental." He put his hands in his pockets, picking up speed as he walked down the street and turned the corner, glancing behind him as he went.

Harry let her go and she covered her face with her hands. For a second he thought she was crying, but when she looked up it was clearly laughter making her shoulders shake. She turned to look at him, her face red from the yelling, from embarrassment, her hair frizzy around her face, as though built up with the electricity of her anger. It seemed as though she was helplessly laughing at herself. Harry thought that she looked more alive somehow, completely open, and oddly beautiful.

"Why do you always see me at my worst? Poor you, being my friend."

"You know, that's funny, I was just thinking that I'm happy I keep getting to see you be amazing."


	5. Poorly Kept Secrets

Oak is definitely charming despite, or maybe somewhat because of, being a bit of an arsehole.

"So, you and Potter still dating but without any of the fun parts?"

"That's very much not your business." Sophie held up a finger and rolled her eyes, answering the phone to put it on hold. She would never do that to anyone else. Oak's smirk only broadened.

"What do you need Mr. Oak? Other than the enjoyment of harassing me, I mean?"

"I would like to set up an appointment with Mr. Ruth for next week sometime."

"I can do that." She scrolled down to Mr. Ruth's calendar, clicking on it and enlarging it, looking through his schedule.

"I also wanted to explain something to you, so you know what a catch you've got."

Sophie sighed, glancing up from the calendar with raised eyebrows.

"Our dear Harry, is, how to say this, somewhat famous in our… field. His field, I should say. I hardly go running after violent people all day." He chuckled to himself.

"Harry...is famous in his super secret law enforcement job?"

Oak's smile took a sharp edge that made her feel oddly nervous.

"Is that what he's told you he does?"

She swallowed. "Are you saying he lied?"

Oak glanced at his watch and shrugged. "No, I suppose he isn't lying."

His face was unreadable. Sophie gripped her pen tighter. He was leaning more towards arsehole than charming at the moment. "Mr. Ruth has availability in the afternoon next Wednesday and in the morning next Friday. Do either of those times work for you?"

"Wednesday after three would be preferred. What I mean to say is that he is known to be quite skilled."

She entered the appointment and then picked up the phone, "May & Deringer, thank you for holding. How may I help direct your call? Right, let's see… it looks like Ms. May is on the phone right now, I can get you over to her voicemail or I can leave a message for - Yes, I'll transfer you to her voicemail." She pressed a few buttons and put the phone down with a click. "Why does everything you say sound smarmy? What do you mean he's known to be quite skilled?" She put air quotes around the last two words.

Oak let out his booming laugh, making her smile a little despite herself. "I guess you'll just have to find out." He started walking to the door, "I'll see you next week goldilocks. Tell Potter I said hi." He left with a jaunty wave, Sophie shaking her head.

There was a black lump on her counter which she quickly realized was Oak's wallet.

"Bugger." She grabbed the wallet and pulled off her head set, running towards the lifts. She would have to call him if she didn't catch him. She hoped she wouldn't get in trouble for just leaving like that. It's not like they get a lot of foot traffic, she shrugged to herself, walking briskly toward the car park.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Oak's massive form in the alleyway between the building and the car park and paused. She moved to wave at him, but he turned sharply, a long, thin pale stick in his hand, and simply disappeared. A loud crack followed.

Sophie stood at the mouth of the alleyway, her hand still slightly up, her mouth open.

"Harry...are you happy being an Auror?"

Kingsley was pretending to shuffle through some paper at his desk. Harry glanced up from the notes he was making on Kingsley's expectations for a new field of muggle relation cases that the DMLE was starting.

"What?"

Kingsley put his papers down, an awkward hesitation on his usually confident face. "It's...you know, having you be in the Auror department is…" He sighed, rubbing his face. "Look, I like having you as an Auror. First, because you've got a good head for this job… for finding patterns, remember clues, and putting together motives. I can easily see you becoming department head one day, if you… if you want to, if you have your heart in it. And not because of your fame, but because of your skill. Second, I can't deny...that, that having you as a Ministry employee has been helpful to me because of your fame, as well."

Harry sat back on the purple, cushy sofa in Kingsley's office with a frown. It was one thing to know, in the back of his head, that Kingsley was using his fame and another for him to just come out and say it.

Kingsley looked at him, less awkward now, his face kind and serious. "But I still remember, as though it was yesterday, getting you from your Aunt and Uncle's house. You were about half a foot shorter and looked so alarmed. I saw you grow up and do incredible things. I worry that I've been selfish. I haven't forgotten all that you've done for us and, regardless of what works for me, I also want you to be happy. So, are you happy being an Auror?"

"I figure that all jobs have parts to them that become unenjoyable, but that doesn't mean you hate the job, right?" He wasn't answering the question. Knowing Kingsley, that wasn't going to be good enough.

"What parts do you find unenjoyable?" Kingsley walked toward him, around the edge of his desk, and sat in the stiff black chair opposite the sofa Harry was sitting on.

"What you'd expect, I suppose. The paperwork, some of the dynamics in the hierarchy, I don't know, I don't think that you have to worry about this. I think you're doing a great job as Minister, if you were worried about that? I mean, should you be worried about this at all, anyway? Aren't there more pressing things?"

He knew that he was doing a very bad job of shrugging this off, of changing the course of the conversation. He glanced up from his clasped hands and saw, his stomach clenching, that Kingsley had his calm interrogator face on.

"What do you enjoy about being an Auror, then?"

"I… There are a lot of things, like, you know, I like to help people. I like feeling I'm doing something to make people safer, to help the world recover from Voldemort."

"Lisa has been giving you some fairly low profile assignments. Has that affected how you feel about this position?"

Harry's head snapped up. "I knew it! Why? I thought I was losing my mind. You said I was skilled and I've never done an assignment for her that she's said I've done poorly on or anything, so what's been going on? Why is it, after most of the Death Eaters have been rounded up, that I've been doing nothing now? So it has been on purpose?"

"If you were feeling unfulfilled, why haven't you come to us before?"

"Wha-no, I want a clear answer first, have you been giving me easy assignments on purpose?"

"I don't run the Auror department, Harry, I -"

"Bullocks." He doesn't even know when he stood, but Kingsley was slowly standing now too, a wary look on his face. "You know exactly what's been going on, you've said yourself that I'm a useful little tool for you. You've been telling Lisa to give me smaller stuff."

"Lisa was the one who decided to give you simpler assignments, though she did consult with me first." Harry opened his mouth to speak, furious, but Kingsley held up a hand, "Just let me explain."

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows.

Kingsley sat with a sigh. "Do you know how much you mean to the wizarding world? Not even just in the UK? I mean the whole wizarding world? Nevermind that, do you know how much people care for you here? Do you have any idea how reckless you were being last year? I can't believe that you could stand there and tell me that Lisa never criticised you. She wrote report after report about your concerning behavior. She even wrote you up over it."

"Concerning behavior, right. She said I needed to be safer a few times, sure, but I always got the job done, and that was what was important. I saved lives. Or I used to save lives, I should say. God, I can't believe that you have been keeping me back like this, using me for positive press and then shoving me away so I can keep shiny and safe for more press later. You know what? Both of you can -"

"I'm not Dumbledore." The deep timbre of his voice didn't seem to get louder, just more powerful, filling the room with his control. Harry's words died in his throat. "I'm not going to sacrifice you."

He felt like he had been slapped.

"You were behaving recklessly. You were told to stop. You didn't. We changed your assignments and you said nothing. You know what that tells me?"

Harry shook his head, his crossed arms moving from his chest to his stomach. He couldn't believe that he said that, couldn't get past it.

"That you're heart isn't in it. That...that you aren't only trying to help people. That you are still, in some ways, trying to finish the job you started out to do in that forest three years ago."

A storm of thoughts flew through his mind, emotions rising to a indecisive crescendo, muddling into a slow, dark note, hollow but settling heavily into his chest. "You think I want to die?"

He shook his head, rising from his seat to stand in front of him. "No. Not at all. I think it's more that you don't know what to live for now, so you do what you have always done."

That hollow note vibrated painfully. Harry turned on his heel and walked to the door, his footsteps slow.

Kingsley didn't try to stop him, but his voice followed him to the door and past it. "I should have said something to you a long time ago. I'm sorry."

Harry closed the door behind him.

Sophie tried to squash the excitement that came from Harry's sudden phone call. It was normal to be excited to see your friend when you were prepared to spend the evening in your damp, boring apartment, instead. But she knew that it wasn't normal to be this excited. She needed to get a grip on herself. Harry made his feelings for her very clear already.

She combed through her hair again, gritting her teeth against the snags. He had sounded strange on the phone. Distracted, almost. He asked if she wanted to see the new Hollywood blockbuster action film that came out last week, but he didn't sound over thrilled about it. Though he could ask her to watch paint dry and she'd probably end up saying yes to it.

Stupid crush.

Her phone rang. It was him. "Hey, I'm probably five mintues out."

"Great. I'll meet you outside my building."

She finished the ever fruitless assault on her hair quickly, made a face at herself in the mirror, and walked down the four flights of stairs to the quiet street. It was her favourite time of day, when the sunlight slanted soft and golden over rooftops and through leaves, slowly deepening to a dark gold, then a light purple, everything becoming shadows against the last remains of light.

It had just finished raining, the air fresh and clean for a few minutes. She took a deep breath and stretched her arms above her, letting the slight breeze pull through her fingers.

"You look like a cat." She jumped, startled. Harry was standing in front of her, the slightest of smiles on his face.

She had to blink away the image of Oak disappearing into thin air from her mind, "Where on earth did you come from?"

"I just came from tube station?"

"No, I mean, you weren't on the street a second ago."

"Yes I was."

"No you weren't."

"Yes I was."

"No. You. Weren't."

He sighed, "What then, I just appeared here?"

"That's what I'm saying, yes."

His small smile changed in nature, though to what she couldn't say. "You would've had heard a loud crack if I just appeared in front of you."

"What?" Her voice came out a choked whisper. "Why would you say that?"

His smile left entirely. He put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm just kidding, what's wrong?"

"Why would you say that? Why a loud crack?"

He furrowed his eyebrows and licked his lips, bewildered. "I don't know, if I just popped out of time and space, it seems like it should make some sort of noise?"

She closed her eyes briefly. First she was hallucinating Oak disappearing into thin air in alleyways, making loud cracking sounds, and now she was taking out her crazy on poor Harry.

"Are you okay? I swear I just walked up the street."

She nodded, opening her eyes again, looking into Harry's concerned, nervous face. "Sorry. Yeah. I'm fine, just a strange moment."

She patted his hand on her shoulder. "Shall we head out?"

He nodded, still frowning and giving her furtive glances as they walked along to the tube station.

"I'm sorry I was so odd just now." She looked over at him, noticing that he seemed … off, somehow.

He sighed and shrugged, "We're all odd sometimes. Some more than others." It was meant to be a joke, but his voice was flat. He was looking ahead, the glare of the slanting sun on his glasses making it hard to see his eyes. His mouth was in a firm line, his jaw working, clenching and unclenching.

"What made you want to see a film all of a sudden?"

"I don't really, I just wanted out of the flat. Ron and Hermione aren't home tonight, so…"

They were coming up on the entrance. She paused, touching his arm. "If you don't mind, a walk around the park sounds a little nicer than a film right now."

He turned to look at her, the glare gone from his glasses. She had been right, his eyes looked tired, his face set in a frown. He nodded.

She had to fight the urge to take his hand, instead just turning around and walking a different direction, looking behind her to make sure he followed.

His steps quickly caught up with hers. His hands were in his pocket, his face unchanged. They walked in silence for a few streets.

"I had a bad day at work. I'm, I can't even really talk about it, which is just making it worse somehow. I'm sorry." He glanced down at her, his face full of regret. "There's a lot of stuff I want to tell you, actually."

His shoulders slumped. She had never seen him look so, downtrodden or defeated, before. She couldn't resist the urge any more and looped her arm through his. "So don't describe what happened, then. Just talk about how it was. The feeling, or the general idea. It doesn't have to make complete sense to me or order for us to talk about it."

He glanced down at her, opening and closing his mouth as they rounded the corner into the park gates, struggling to come up with the right words. "So… so basically, my boss and my boss's boss have been giving me less, I don't know, involved, cases lately."

"Like Oak?"

"Yeah, exactly. But even Oak was probably one of the more, uh, high profile cases I've gotten lately. I thought that I was being given less, but things have been slower in the department, less to do, and I thought that maybe they were just giving me a break. I was very busy last year, too busy, I guess. But I found out today that they've been giving me less on purpose because they don't trust me."

She was surprised at the level of bitterness in his voice. "Don't trust you?"

They sat down on a bench, her arm moving from looped through his to resting on his forearm. The wood was still soggy from the rain, she could feel it through her skirt.

"I was too reckless last year, they say, and rather than talk to me about it they just gave me busy work."

"They didn't bother telling you at all? I really hate when jobs do that. How are you supposed to know what's happened unless they say?"

He sighed, his head falling backwards, resting on the bench, watching the sway of darkening trees above him. "I… I guess they did tell me I wasn't being careful enough. I just didn't think it was that important. Nothing serious happened and I was doing something more important, making a difference."

She pulled away a little, frowning. "Were you putting yourself in danger?"

His head came back up, his frown turning into a scowl. She could feel herself frowning back, maintaining contact with the vivid green of his eyes. "For example, if one of your friends had done whatever you got in trouble for, would you have been angry with them?"

Slowly the scowl melted away into an unreadable expression. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "I just wanted to be helpful."

"You can't be helpful without putting yourself at unnecessary risk?"

He looked back at her, his face all of sudden incredibly sad. "Not in my experience."

She put her hand on his back. "What if, instead of risking yourself being the most helpful thing, you staying well and safe is?"

"How would me staying safe help anyone?"

Her fingers seemed to flex involuntarily, gripping lightly at his back, the heat of it against her palm. "Because you can hardly help anyone if you're dead. Also, I don't know, then the world would be without you in it, which would make it a much worse place as far as I'm concerned."

"I wasn't going to die. There is a difference between taking a risk to get something important done and just needlessly flinging yourself off a cliff or something."

"I'm sorry, Harry. I was fully prepared to side with you against your work, rail against the injustice of what happened, but the more you say, the more I feel like I might agree with them. It sounds like you don't value your own safety which I can't side with. There are many ways to help people, you know."

He stood up abruptly and she swallowed against the lump in her throat. She hated fighting with anyone, but somehow she knew fighting with Harry would be worse. She almost wanted to walk it back, change what she was saying so that they agreed. But that wouldn't be her being a friend.

"You don't understand. Besides, the nature of my work is inherently dangerous -"

"I guessed as much, but that's why you have to value your safety more, not less." She found she was standing too.

"You just don't understand. If you don't take risks people die. If the balance is between you getting hurt and other people getting hurt or worse, it's an easy choice to make. You don't… There isn't a way to explain all of this to you, but my work is treating me differently because of stuff in the past. They are punishing me for what they would reward in others."

She put her hands on her hips, incredibly frustrated. "I may not understand everything, but I do understand that you're contradicting yourself. You said that your work warned you that you were behaving recklessly, so they don't seem to expect that behavior of your co-workers. You indicated yourself that if your friends behaved the same way, you'd get angry at them. So this doesn't seem like stuff that's expected of you."

He spun on his heel, walking a few paces away before turning back, fire in his eyes. "I can't just watch while I can do something. If I can do something and I don't, then whatever happens becomes my fault, don't you see? I'm responsible if something happens. It's my fault."

Her legs felt weaker, she sat back down and looked up at him, all the fire gone from her voice, replaced with a pleading quality. "I don't understand the context, or the circumstances, or anything really. But surely you can see that thinking is wrong? You aren't a superhero. You can't … can't fly the earth backward and go back in time and fix everything. I...I agree that it's every responsible adult's job to do whatever is in their ability to help when they can. I'm not advocating for people to ignore the wrong going on around them. And if you are in a position of power, like it sounds like you are, then indeed your responsibility is greater. But it isn't true that everything that goes wrong is your fault. It's… It's absurd to think that you can control whatever happens. Your responsibility, everyone's responsibility, is to do their best, to try, and that's it. I can see why you would think that taking risks would be trying your best..." She bit her lip, uncertain of where she was going with this, unclear where her words were taking her, but she had to try. "But you're not excluded from this cycle of responsibility. Your work has a responsibility to make sure you're safe, you have a responsibility to your friends to make sure you're safe. You also count, you also matter, and it would matter just as much if you were hurt or injured as it would if anyone else was. Does any of this make sense to you?"

The fire left his eyes as she talked. He sat down again, his elbows back on his knees. "I understand what you're saying. I do. But, I… I have to… I have to do more because I failed before. I guess I didn't fail. But I was so slow and so many people… And it was my fault, because it was up to me, if I had just been faster, if I had just done more, then…"

She didn't know what he was talking about, couldn't guess at whatever he had been through just from what he was saying. A part of her ached to know, her mind ran through more and more impossible scenarios. She wanted to know the exact shape and details of the ghosts that seemed to haunt him. But a more pressing part of her knew now wasn't the time. The guilt in his voice pressed against the back of her throat, put pressure behind her eyes, but she blinked away the tears that weren't hers to cry. She put her hand back on his back.

He turned his head again to look at her, the expression on his face making him look years older than his youthful visage said he was. She noticed, just then, the faint pink of a scar on his forehead, shaped like a lightning bolt, and wondered if it was from the horrible things he was hinting at.

She moved closer to him, scooting across the damp bench until their thighs touched. She reached out and took his hand. Her voice was shaky. "I really don't know what happened to you or what the consequences were, but I have a very firm feeling that you're being way too hard on yourself."

He gave her hand a small squeeze, a half smile on his face. "Hermione's always telling me that, too." He stood up, still holding her hand. "I'm sorry I always seem to be unloading on you."

She snorted. "Who was there to listen to me whinge about work? Or witness me melt down on my boss? And get smashed with me after? Or watch me completely lose my mind and try to attack my ex?" She frowned, shaking her head. "Blimey that was a lot. I'm embarrassed all over again."

He smiled more fully, some of the darkness from earlier clearing from his face as he lead them out of the park. "Maybe we can still make it to the cinema to see that silly film? It would be my treat."

She glanced down to their joined hands. For a guy that made his feelings clear already, he sure was confusing sometimes. "What for?"

He shrugged. "For being a good friend."

"I think I'm going to quit."

Hermione and Ron were standing over the stove, squabbling with each other. They said that they wanted to make dinner for once, as Harry had done it every day that week, particularly because Teddy had been over a few times. Harry was currently fiddling with one of the action figures he had left behind.

"What?" Hermione looked between the cookbook and the pan with the curry bubbling away on it, frowning.

"You know, you kind of look like you did that day in sixth year, remember, when you were trying to beat Harry at making that draught?" Ron gestured around his head, mimicking her frizz.

She jabbed him with the other end of the spoon she had been stirring with. "Go away Ronald."

He smirked and sat down with Harry at the kitchen table. "What were you saying mate?"

He took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to quit."

Ron frowned while Hermione flipped to the next page of her book. "Quit what?"

"Being an Auror."

Both Hermione and Ron looked at him with almost identical expressions of surprise.

"Wha- why?" Ron's face was completely flabbergasted.

Hermione put her hands on her hips, "Have they done something? I swear, the way they were treating you last year, barely waiting until you were recovered from an injury before shipping you off again …"

He shook his head, putting Teddy's toy down. "It's nothing like that, quite the opposite, really. They want me to be more careful, I guess…" He picked up the toy again, unable to keep his hands still. "I had a long talk with Sophie." He ignored the significant looks that they shot each other across the kitchen. "It just made me realise that perhaps I'm not in it for the right reasons. Or that maybe my head isn't on straight. I don't know. I just don't want to be some melodramatic prat who martyrs himself forever, I suppose."

Hermione dropped her spoon on the counter and tapped the burner with her wand, bringing the heat lower. Harry didn't want to look up as she walked over, but had to when she put her hand on his shoulder. She had tears brimming in her eyes. He hated when she cried.

"Really? Truly? You won't quit being an Auror and run off to do something more dangerous, like, I don't know… hunt dark wizards in other countries or something stupid?"

He furrowed his brows, confused. "Of course not. I don't really know what I want to do, but I think I'm just kind of sick of it. Feeling guilty, I mean. I don't even know what else I'd like to do, really. I … just don't know what I'm doing anymore. I feel…" He shrugged, wondering why it was so easy, almost too easy, to blurt out all of his feelings to Sophie, but found it so hard right now. His voice came out barely above a whisper. "Useless. I feel useless. But I don't think that throwing myself into danger is the right answer."

Ron spoke from the other side of the table, his expression uncharacteristically solemn. "I don't think that you're an overdramatic prat, generally, and you are very far from useless. But I can't say that I'm too broken up about you not wanting to throw yourself into danger any more. You've done enough."

Harry shook his head, his stomach knotting.

Hermione gave his shoulder a light squeeze. "You have my full support to quit, Harry. You have my full support to do anything that will make you happy." He looked up at her again, the tears that were once brimming fully sliding down her face. "Please, please be happy."


	6. Witches

There was a knock on his door. He pulled his pillow over his head, willing himself to go back to sleep despite the tapping.

"Harry, it's nearly noon already." Surprisingly it was Ron's voice instead of Hermione's. He walked through the door, not bothering to wait for him to respond.

"I didn't say you could come in." He felt the pillow lift off his head and then smack back down before being lifted again.

"Right. We lived in the same rooms for seven years. Do you think I'm going to see anything I haven't already seen? I mean, I guess I should be more careful, someday maybe Sophie might be over and…"

Harry sat up, snatching the pillow from Ron's hands and smacking him around the head with it. Ron just smirked. "I hate to sound like Hermione, but damned if the girl isn't right most of the time. You can't keep lying around like this. How are you supposed to 'find your life's path' if you just sleep all day like the moodiest log in the world?"

Harry shrugged and changed the subject, "Why are you home? George finally get sick of you?"

"I finished everything that needed to get done today, so I just left. Kind of nice being the co-owner sometimes." Ron paused and sat down on the bed, looking like he was trying to stay casual but mostly looking awkward. "I was actually thinking of going to the Burrow and seeing Mum, it's been too long. Do...you want to come?"

Harry sat back against his headboard, frowning. "I'd love to see your Mum, have some cooking that isn't my own or whatever horror you and Hermione have concocted. But, um, I don't know if I'm ready to see…"

"Ginny's actually at training camp, right now, so she's not at home for a few months."

"Training camp?"

"Yeah, she got in with the HolyHead Harpies finally."

Harry, for the first time in days, felt a genuine smile spread across his face. "That's brilliant. Good for her, I know she's been wanting this for a long time."

Ron smiled back, looking pleased. "Yeah, it is. You know, I think she misses you." Ron winced, shaking his head. "I mean, not like that, I don't think. She seems, you know, pretty happy in general. I just mean, I think that, Merlin, I don't know really, but I think that she's wondering how you're doing, you know?"

Harry pulled his knees to his chest, lightly circling his arms around them. "What do you tell her, then? That I'm a jobless loser who sleeps all day and doesn't have a damn idea what I'm doing with my life?"

Ron sighed. "I don't need to tell her you're jobless, the whole world knows."

Harry thunked his head against his headboard. "Right."

"But I did tell her that you seem better."

Harry let out a scoff, raising his eyebrows. "What?"

"I think you are, really. I mean, you're being kind of mopey, yeah, but I much prefer that to how you were last year…" He paused, the edges of his ears getting redder. "Look, you know how I feel about the touchy emotional chats, that's more Hermione's area than mine, and you know that I stayed right out of your and Ginny's fights, but, you know…" He sighed, shaking his head. "What I'm trying to say is that you seem more even keeled now, less tense, then you were with Ginny and with work last year. I think that Sophie has been a good influence on you."

"We're not dating, you know."

"I didn't say you were. But while we're on the topic, why aren't you?"

Harry frowned, somehow finding it harder to brush it off with his usual eyeroll and jokes about them being worse than gossiping grandmothers.

There was a woosh and a thump in the living room, followed by Hermione's yell as she came down the hallway. "I'm just stopping by to grab a file I forgot. Though I swear to Merlin if you are still asleep Harry Potter, I will…"

She paused at the doorway, glancing between Harry and Ron. "I've come home from work to find you in bed with my best friend." She kicked off her shoes, sitting cross legged at the end of the bed.

"He has a comfy bed."

"Too right."

Harry shook his head. "Maybe I should buy you both a new one, that way you'll stop harassing me."

"It's not harassment if you like it, Harry." Ron winked at him. Harry hit him around the head with the pillow again.

"What were you talking about before I came home? What are you doing home anyway, Ron?"

"Wrapped things up early at the office. We were just talking about going to the Burrow."

"No we weren't, we were having an emotional chat about feelings and relationships."

Ron shoved his knees, hissing, "Shut it, she'll get encouraged."

Hermione rolled her eyes, standing up. "As much as I would like to join you, I really did just run in to grab a file. And potentially banish Harry from the flat. But that seems well in hand. Give Molly my love." She walked around the edge of the bed and peck Ron on the lips while Harry made a face.

Ron stood up and followed her out the door, grinning, "I'll walk you to the fireplace."

Harry rolled his eyes while Hermione smiled. "I knew that Harry's bed was no match for me."

* * *

Sophie was standing in his living room, looking at the photos that he remembered to freeze just a minute before she arrived. "You look like your Mum."

"W-what?" Harry spluttered out, setting their glasses on the coffee table.

"I mean, obviously you look like your Dad, you're almost a carbon copy of him." She stepped closer to the photo, squinting, "But yeah, you still look more like your Mum. Something in the facial expression, particularly around the eyes. You know, my brother and I don't look a thing alike. He's tall and has dark hair, while I, obviously, don't." She sat down on the sofa across from him, taking her glass. "But people still frequently guess we're siblings, just from our gestures and things like that. Just from that photo, mind that I'm now just guessing, your Dad seems like one of those boisterous, larger than life sort of people, while your Mum seems like she was more low-key, thoughtful, maybe. You just seem more like her."

"You got all that from a photo?"

"A picture is worth a thousand words. Am I right about them?"

Harry shrugged, "From what I've heard about them, yeah, that seems to fit them both."

Her smile got a little softer, "I'm sure they were lovely people."

He gave a half grin back. "Yeah, I think they probably were."

"Are you going to tell me who everyone else is?"

He stood up, looking at the mantel, Sophie stepping up onto the ledge to see better. "This one here is Ron's family. Those are his parent's, Molly and Arthur, then their oldest Bill, his wife Fluer, and their daughter Victorie. Next is Charlie, then Percy and his fiance Audrey, then George, who had a twin named Fred until he passed a few years ago… um, then there is Ron and Ginny."

She took the photo and brought if closer to her, looking closely at all the faces. "Wow, that's a large family." She put it back, already looking at the next one. "This was my Dad's and my Godfather's friend Remus and his wife, Tonks and their son, my godson, Teddy. Her name was actually Nymphadora, but she would have punched you before you got the Nmy out."

"She would have, as in past tense?"

Harry paused, opening and closing his mouth. "Yeah, she and Remus have passed away, along with my Godfather…"

She put her hand over her mouth, looking more closely at the photos. "What happened? Who watches after Teddy now?"

"They, um, well…" He swallowed, panicking. "I'd rather not say. And Teddy lives with his Grandmum, who's in the next photo with him, there." He pointed to the next frame, then turned away. He was starting to realise what a bad idea this had been. Half the people on the mantle were dead and he didn't have a way to explain it.

"How about we have some lunch? I made some fish and chips?" He started walking towards the door, then glanced back. She was still standing on the ledge, looking at all the photos with a concerned expression. She glanced at him at then back, opening her mouth to say something, then closing it.

"Y-yeah, fish and chips sound good."

She followed more slowly after him, glancing back at the photos.

Harry took the battered fish out of the fridge, placed them in a pan with some oil and turned the stove top on. "I didn't want them to be all cold and soggy for when you came, so I thought I would just fry them up now. The chips are done though." He nodded his head to the basket on the counter.

"Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"They're at the Weasley's, someone's birthday I think, hard to keep track honestly."

"You didn't want to go?"

"Nah, Ginny will be there and I don't want our awkwardness to ruin anything."

"You two must have ended on some pretty bad terms?"

He turned the fish over, thinking. "We weren't good for each other. I don't blame her though, I think I wouldn't have been good for anyone at that time."

"Does she blame you?"

"She used to, yeah." He turned down the heat, frowning, mentally searching around for a different topic.

"I'm sorry Harry. From the moment I stepped in I seem to only be bringing up deaths and heartbreaks. Let's try something else. How's the job transition going?"

"Pretty shit, to be honest."

She sighed, "I know that feeling. So much for a brighter topic, sorry. It's only been a couple of weeks though, I'm sure you'll find something soon. Ron and Hermione are your friends. I'm sure they'll help out if it takes a while."

He sat down on the side adjacent to her, putting the fish and chips in the center of the table. "Oh, no, I'm not worried about that. I have enough money to get on with."

"Good saver?"

"Not bad, though I also have money from my parents and godfather and um, yeah."

She nodded and there was another long pause. She took a bite, her eyes widening. "This is really good. Where'd you get the batter?"

"I made it myself." He grinned, feeling pretty proud. "I'm not a bad cook."

"Where'd you learn? I can barely boil pasta." She continued to chew happily.

"My aunt and uncle, I cooked for them a lot."

"I thought you all didn't get on?"

"We didn't."

She frowned, wiping her hands on a napkin. "But you still cooked for them? That was nice of you."

He laughed. "I didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. It was less like a family activity and more like a house el-, um, servant kind of thing."

"That's terrible. But at least now you get something out of it."

"True. I certainly didn't then."

"You didn't get to eat the food you made? What did you eat then?"

"Not much."

She stopped eating, her hands resting on the table. "That sounds really neglectful and, and just messed up."

Sometimes he forgot that large aspects of his childhood would be very alarming to most people.

"It wasn't all that bad." He shrugged, mentally casting around for another topic.

"You keep an awful lot from me." Her voice was soft. "I don't want to keep pushing on things, because there seems like there was a lot of unpleasantness in your past, and I understand not wanting to linger over sad things. But I'm your friend right? I want to know about the hard stuff too, if you were worried about what I might think."

"Thank you. I...I appreciate that. But, you now, I'll tell you about stuff, s-some time. Don't worry about it."

She stilled and for a second her expression clouded over, then in the next it was gone. She blinked once, and then again, looking bewildered. "Is...is that a wand?"

Harry's head snapped around. His wand was just out in the open, on the counter. His mouth fell open in amasement of his own stupidity. "Yeah!" He's voice was too high pitched. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, looks like. Must be something from Ron's shop."

She stood up and walked over to it, Harry falling instep behind her. She picked it up and he couldn't help by watch in fascination as she swung it around in the air a few times. Nothing happened. "It looks kind of like another one I saw once…" She coughed. "It's a nice wood for a toy. Must be for cosplaying or something like that?"

Harry shrugged, itching to take it out of her loose hold. He waited a few seconds then took out of her hands perhaps quicker than was polite, but she just glanced between him and the wand once, then said, "I have some tea I wanted you to try, if you're interested? It's this wonderful Assam I think you'll like."

"Tea sounds great. I'm glad you brought some, as you're tea snobbery has made me a little self conscious."

"Good taste isn't snobbery my dear Henry. Take it as a learning opportunity." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled widely at him. Harry wasn't always the best at picking up on these things, but even he knew that it was a little forced.

When she left a half hour later after only one cup of tea, with none of her usual hugs or enthusiasm in trying to figure out when they were going to see each other again, but instead with a small wave and an empty smile, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to continue on as they have been for much longer.

* * *

Sophie stared out the window of the office lobby. It was truly dead today. The phone had rung once. She had already ordered more coffee filters. She had nothing to do. Nothing but to contemplate the latest rejection from Harry.

So he only wanted to chat about tea and movies. He was a fun friend who helped her hide from exes and fell in fountains. He only wanted to hang out when he was bored and Ron and Hermione weren't around.

He must be bored often though, and Hermione and Ron gone a lot, considering how often he sought her out.

She sighed, placing her chin in her hands. What did he want from her? What weird game was he playing at? Why did she have to feel sad about it?

She could understand him just simply not being attracted to her. It hurt, but was understandable. You find attractive what you find attractive. But even in the realm of friendship it felt like he was playing hot and cold with her.

How many secrets did he need to keep, exactly?

She tried to put it aside and instead think about her more pressing worry. What was she going to do when she went to school. She had given herself until the end of the year to pick a place, a subject, and apply. It didn't matter if it was for something completely impractical at this point any more. It just had to be something. She couldn't keep doing this forever. She felt a wave of anxiety came over her. Perhaps it was better to think about Harry instead.

She wanted to talk to Harry about it since he was now choosing a new career, but he hadn't seemed to want to talk about that either.

"You're look morose. Even your hair looks a little down."

She jumped. "Oak. Here to see Mr. Ruths?"

"Yes."

"I'll let him know."

"Don't bother him yet, I'm early. If you could just point me to the toilet?"

She pointed down the first hallway to the left. He nodded, looking a little clammy, leaving his briefcase on the counter in front of her. She was writing an email to Mr. Ruth anyway, letting him know that Oak had arrived but wasn't ready for him yet, when Oak's briefcase slid from it's haphazard position on the counter ledge. It landed with a thunk and the sound of papers. She walked around the desk and groaned. His stuff had fallen everywhere. She started gathering his papers, some biscuits that had fallen out of a tin, business cards, a small labeless bottle with a stopper filled with purple liquid, an apple, and the long, light colored stick of wood that she saw him hold in his hands when he had disappeared. It was a wand, and just like Harry's, the wood seemed high quality. She frowned, her heart beating faster, and put it back into the briefcase with everything else.

"Oh no, sorry about that. Guess I wasn't too careful."

Oak strode into the lobby looking a lot less pale.

"I hope you don't mind me putting everything back?"

"Not at all. After all, it's hardly like there's anything interesting in there, right?"

He winked at her rattled face before turning to greet Mr. Ruth who had just entered into the lobby.

Harry flopped down on Hermione's bed. Technically Hermione had her own room, but it was more of an office filled with books and paper and things that wouldn't really fit in Ron's room. He doesn't think she's slept one night in this bed. Hermione glanced up from a letter she was reading when he laid down.

"I want to tell Sophie about magic."

Hermione put her letter down. "I thought that it wouldn't be any trouble keeping magic out of a conversation with a casual friend?"

Harry looked down at his shirt, brushing off imagery dust. "Yes, well, I think she's starting to guess that I'm keeping a lot from her and I don't think she likes it too much."

"She probably thinks that you just don't want to get all that close with her. Did she bring anything up the last time you talked?

"She said that she was my friend and wanted to know me, even the hard stuff."

"And what did you say?"

"I said that I appreciated that and that I would tell her some stuff some time."

"Is that how you phrased it? Some stuff some time?"

Harry shrugged, he's eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, basically. Is that bad?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "Sometimes it's like the both of you haven't changed since fifth year. Harry, she probably thought you were just brushing her off."

"I'm not! I want to tell her about everything."

"How is she supposed to know that?"

Harry groaned, flopping back. "She did seem kind of cold towards me afterwards, last time."

"Really, Harry, doesn't this work out though? Aren't you casual friends? If you both were getting closer, then this distance will make a natural buffer."

"Maybe I don't want a buffer." He frowned at the ceiling.

"You don't invite her over when we're here, she hasn't met Andi or Teddy or any of the other Weasleys, she doesn't know what you did for work, she doesn't know you're a wizard. You were perfectly fine with a buffer before."

He looked over at her. She had the excited, determined look of Hermione zeroing in on A Point.

"We're just closer now. I want…"

Hermione leaned forward, impatient.

"I want to be closer with her."

She sat back with an eye roll. "Then, frankly, you can't. Not without breaking the Statute."

"It's not like I've never broken laws before."

"We aren't children fighting a tyrannical government anymore either. Rules that apply to other people also apply to you."

"So then what?"

"The Statue has been somewhat loosened lately. For example, if you are planning to marry a muggle, you can tell them before the marriage now. Though of course if they leave you over it they still have to be obliviated."

"Thanks Hermione. I'll go buy a ring tomorrow."

She sighed, "I have to say, Harry, that I've been pretty disappointed with how've been treating her."

Harry felt his jaw clenched as he sat up. "Excuse me?"

"You've been mysterious and distant and strange to her since you've started seeing her."

"I'm not seeing her -"

"Yes, you are. You go on dates. You spend every other day with her and her alone, using her to avoid the wizarding world."

"I'm not using her -"

"Aren't you? Really think about it. You've been seeing her for months now, and only now do you start to feel guilty about keeping your distance?"

"She hasn't minded until recently either!"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "You've been flirting more with her lately, haven't you?"

Harry stood up, opening and closing his mouth a few times, before spitting out, "Thank you, Hermione. Not only did I not think through potential solutions to this issue with you like I hoped I would, other than the wonderful suggestion of proposing, but now I know exactly what kind of man you think I am."

He turned and walked through her door and down the hallway, grabbing his wand and coin bag as he left. He heard Hermione walk down the hallway after him.

"You know very well that I think you're a good man. But don't think I didn't notice that you didn't answer my question. Harry, it's very unlike you to treat someone so casually, to play games with feelings, that I'm just worried-"

Harry threw the floo powder into the fire and stepped in, the last thing he saw before spinning off into green chaos was Hermione standing in their living room, her arms crossed and shaking her head.

He landed in a floo gate in Diagon Alley. As he had been storming away he had only been thinking about getting away from Hermione's judgement and that he wanted to get the wizarding career manuel that Kingsley had recommended him, but now that he was here, he abruptly remembered that he was the most famous wizard alive.

"Bullocks."

He glanced out of the floo and pulled his hood up. He hadn't even changed into wizard clothing before he left, wearing jeans, a black hoodie and trainers. He hoped that would help people not recognize him.

He made it about halfway to Flourish and Blotts before people started to point at him. He picked up his speed and pulled the hood more over his head, but his way was soon blocked by a forming crowd.

"Mr. Potter! Why did you really leave the Ministry? Are they up to no good again?"

"Harry, are you really dating the lead singer from the Weird Sisters?"

"Mr. Potter, How have you been? Where have you been?"

"I-I'm just trying to get to Flourish and Blotts, if you all please could -"

"You heard him, get out of the way!"

"I'm just asking a question. Why don't you get out of the way?"

"Mr. Potter, if you are looking for a job, I happen to be the owner of a clothing line, if you want to see -"

They had closed him into a corner, touching his arms, his shoulders. He spun sharply on his heel and felt the hands slip away as he appeared in the first place he thought of, the alley by Sophie's.

He stuffed his wand and bag into the pocket of his hoodie and stepped onto the sidewalk, nearly knocking into the girl he unconciously came to see.

"Oh, wow, hey -"

"Harry, Wh-, um, did you just come out of the alley? Did you hear a loud crack?"

"N-No. Um I was just in the neighborhood and thought that I might swing by. Are you busy?"

"I'm just heading off to the dentist, actually."

"Oh, would you like some company?"

"To the dentist's?"

"...Yeah…"

She tilted her head, looking him over. "Are you okay? You look kind of ruffled."

He nodded, swallowing. "I know it's weird. But if you'd like the company, I would like to go with you wherever you're going."

She took a step back, still looking him over. She had a different look in her eyes, her smile small instead of the wide one she usually showed him. "I suppose, sure."

They walked down the street towards the tube station in silence. Harry kept glancing at her, but she was looking at her printed directions. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her hair up in a messy bun. He never really saw her in anything other than dresses before. Somehow this outfit made her look smaller but more formed at the same time, the jeans showing the curve of her hips, the t-shirt hugging the sides of her slim waist. He realised that she was looking at him now, her eyebrows raised.

He cleared his throat. "I don't think I've ever seen you anything other than dresses."

She glanced down at herself. "I have to wear dresses at work, so it's nice to change it up sometimes." Her small hands quickly folded and placed the directions in the brown bag hanging from her shoulder. "Ron and Hermione busy again?"

They walked down the tube station steps. "Hermione and I had a fight, actually."

Was he imagining it, or was her smile a little bitter? "I see. Want to talk about it?"

Harry swallowed and shook his head. Her smile's edge became sharper and she let out a light scoff.

They sat in silence again. She glanced again at her directions, reaching out and lightly touching him, her knuckles lightly hitting the wand in his pocket. "This is our stop, Harry."

They stood, making their way through the crowds and out to the street, losing the crowd quickly as she turned down a smaller side street. She abruptly turned to him and reached into his pocket before he could even work up enough confusion to stop her. She pulled the wand out and held it up, looking almost analytically at it.

Harry snapped it out of her hands. "What are you doing?"

He could practically see her building her courage. She stood her full height, her chin up. "Harry, Are you… Are you a witch?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Hope you're enjoying the story so far! I think we are probably around the halfway mark, if my planning goes as expected. I just wanted to remind you all if you're enjoying the story, or not, please review to let me know! How is Sophie? How is the pace? The relationships? I want to know what you think!


	7. Wizard

Her small face was tilted upward to look him straight on. Her dark eyes, usually so kind and full of laughter, were dead serious. To laugh and try to brush it off as a joke she was making would be insulting and wouldn't work. How did she even guess? It seemed like stretch just from seeing his wand a couple of times. He thought of lies, of walk arounds, of avoiding, of just disappearing, running away.

But he was never really good at lying or running away when he should.

"Yes, though men are called wizards."

Her eyes widened, the hand holding his wand starting to shake slightly. She licked her lips, holding the wand delicately out to him. "Show me. Please." Her voice was small and uncertain, but the command was still there. He had never seen such intensity on her usually easy going features.

It felt like every spell he had ever learned had left his head all at once. His heart started beating fast.

He did the first one that came to mind. "Lumos."

The soft light shined from the end of his wand, brightening the dark crevices of the wall that they were standing next to. Her mouth fell open, her finger tips raising as though to touch the light coming from the tip of his wand, but she shook her head, letting her hand drop. "I have a pen that does the same thing. Got it for a pound."

He snorted and flicked the light off. He grabbed her hand and pulled her down an alleyway, stepping around a dumpster that blocked the view from one end. "Prepare yourself, this is very, very uncomfortable. Whatever you do, don't let go."

She gripped his hand tighter, a look of apprehension covering her previous bravado. She opened her mouth to speak but Harry was already spinning on his heel, and after a sick, twisting moment of compression, they were in his flat by the front door.

Sophie staggered away from him, paler than he has ever seen her.

"Bloody hell." She leaned against the wall, tilting her head back, not looking at him but at the ceiling, her breathing loud. "Holy bleeding fucking hell."

"Sophie -"

She shook her head, sliding down the wall to sit in a squat, her head between her knees. Her shoulders started to shake.

Harry knelt down too, half formed thoughts of her running away, him having to track her down to obliviate her, him and her no longer hanging out, no longer killing time or drinking or talking about their days, no longer feeling her warm hand on his back, somehow making things better.

She pulled her head up, her face bright red, eyes shining. Great guffawing laughs that were shaking her silent frame before burst out into the hallway. He sat back, startled.

"Oh-Oh my god, you can do magic. You-you can do…"

He put a hand on her shoulder. Maybe she was losing her mind?

"I'm going mad. Absolutely mad. We just...magicked into your flat. Poof!" She flung her arms out, her breathing becoming more normal, tears starting to leak down her face, her smile softening from the manic hysteria of before into something more sincere. "Harry...Harry, this is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, that could ever…" She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his waist, her forehead resting against his collar bone.

He let his knees drop from the crouch that he was in to the floor and pulled her closer.

He could feel her smile, just as wide as before, on her cheek that was now pressed against his shoulder. He smiled wide too.

They were about four drinks in and had been in the flat for hours.

"I'm not going to be able to answer every question you have tonight, I'm exhausted anyway."

"Fine, I'll write a list and get back to you. But let's play twenty answers… questions? Twenty questions, I'll ask fast and you answer fast and then I'll let it go for now. We'll also make it a drinking game!"

He looked at her blearily, the firewhisky he just drank still burning at the back of his throat but also making him feel buoyant. Somehow everything seemed easy. "Fine, but how?"

She grimaced as she took another sip of hers, then smiled. She was sprawled out on the sofa opposite him, her hair loose in a fan around her head, her feet up on the arm rest. "If you take too long to answer, you have to drink, if I take too long to question, I'll drink."

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that didn't sound like a good idea, but the firewhisky burned brightly on. "Sure."

She stared up at the ceiling, opening and closing her mouth. "Uh…"

"This definitely counts as taking too long to ask."

She scowled at him, taking a swig of her firewhisky, "I know, but I have so many questions it's hard to pick one on the spot."

"You're the one who just made up the rules!"

She glared more, taking another swig. "Right. Okay, so, what can't magic do?"

His mind filled with the different laws and limitations and restrictions that his professor's had gone over, Hermione's voice periodically echoing from the no-so-distant past, saying, "Honestly, Harry, you have to remember these for next week's exams." But he couldn't remember them, not well enough to explain quickly.

"Lots."

She sat up, swaying slightly. "That's not answering the question! Take a drink."

"That wasn't a rule!"

"It is now."

He scowled at her over the lip of his glass and took a sip. "Hermione would be a better person to explain the details of things. For example, you can vanish and conjure things, but you can't conjure food into existence. And if the spell is sloppy or weak, conjured things can just disappear. Same idea with vanishing. There are rules and laws and other things about it. But, I guess, in a more...philosoigal, uh, phil-philosophical way, magic can't make someone love you or- or bring people back from the dead. Or make you immortal." He felt a little colder now, having said all that, thinking on how he learned that all the hard way. He took another sip despite having answered the question to feel warmer. It didn't work.

Sophie seemed to sense the shift in his mood, as she stood and stumbled closer to him, flopping down on the seat cushion next to him and poking him in the arm with one finger. "Henry - I've, I've just realized something important."

He turned to look at her, her face solemn despite the pick flush of her cheeks.

"I completely missed my dentist appointment."

They maintained eye contact for a few seconds longer before breaking apart into giggles.

"O-okay, um, next question, what is your favourite spell?"

"Expelliarmus."

"What does it do?"

"Expels arms."

"Wh-what?"

"Sorry, it makes people lose their wands, sometimes they just flying off, sometimes they fly towards you."

"Why's it your favourite?"

"I've gotten good use out of it."

"I don't think that's really answering the question, too vague. Take a drink."

He did and felt her put her head lightly on his shoulder, she made a humming sound.

"Now you're taking too long."

She took a drink, not even protesting, then a second later, "You said that you all have your own world, basically, your own banks and government and all that. Where is your favorite place in the whole wizarding world?"

"Hogwarts."

"Your school?"

"Yeah, it's not actually whatever other name that I've given it before, it's just Hogwarts, or I guess Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"I don't know anybody whose favourite place is their secondary school. Though I guess it being magical would rather make it better. Why is it your favourite?"

Harry slumped back into the sofa more, making Sophie's head slide from his shoulder to his chest. She didn't move away, instead just pulling her feet up on to the sofa so that she was resting against him like he was a large pillow. "It was my first home. And it...it just feels magical. When I was told I was a wizard, despite going to Diagon Alley and seeing Hagrid do magic and all that, I think some part of me didn't believe that it was real. Then I saw Hogwarts and it all just fit. It's perfect. I'll have to take you there sometime."

"I'd like that."

There was a long pause as Harry put his feet up on the coffee table and slumped over further.

She took a drink before he could say anything and then asked, "Why do you all keep it a secret from us?"

He sat for awhile, until she pushed his elbow a little, and he took a swig. "Um, I guess because it's hard to know how you all will react. I mean, there used to be witch burnings."

"Sure, but we thought that witches got their power from the devil. Now I don't think people would react that way."

"Yes, maybe, but the maybe is a pretty scary maybe. And you all are a lot more dangerous than you were in the past, when all you had was some torches and pitchforks. Also, I think it would be hard because muggles would always expect us to be doing stuff for them."

She moved her head off his chest and looked up at him. "Are you worried that I'll do that?"

He considered her for a long second before putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her back down. "No."

"Why?"

"Because you're a good friend."

She put her arm across his stomach. "I guess, in a way, it's not terribly different than having a very rich friend. You can't take them for granted ethier."

Harry opened his mouth to say that he was that too, but changed his mind. He was suddenly overwhelmed by how much he still had to tell her.

"Speaking of, if you all have your own banks, then you all must have your own money?"

"We do, Galleons, Sickles and Knuts."

"Couldn't you con-conjure? - more money?"

"Sure, but it would be counterfeit. I believe the same basic economic principles apply to wizarding money as they do to muggle."

She starting laughing into his chest.

"What?"

"You spent too much time around Oak."

Harry started laughing too. "I'm disgusted to even think about how victeras - vic-victorious his smug face would look right now."

She shifted so that she was lying more on her side, her hand resting on his stomach. She took another sip for no reason, accidentally dripping some on his shirt. He didn't notice. "What does it feel like to do magic?"

"Amazing."

"I bet it's a lot like musicians or athletes that have amazing skills, eh?"

"I've never really thought about it that way, but yeah, I guess so. Except more natural, I suppose."

He shifted too, moving his legs over to the sofa, her head shifting again so that it's resting on his arm. She blinked at him a couple of times and spoke softly, barely above a whisper, "I think I've run out of the drink."

Harry shrugged, "I think we've had enough."

"The nights not over until you fall into a fountain."

"There aren't any fountains in here."

"Go fill up the bathtub. Or even just the sink, I'm not picky."

He reached over and flicked her ear.

Her face scrunched up, her eyes closing and staying closed. "What's your least favourite part about being able to do magic?"

In the long pause that followed her question, she opened her eyes and met his, only inches away. He swallowed once, then twice, "It feels like this gift, but it's also a burden. It seems to make as many problems as it solves."

She reached up and put her hand on his cheek. "I think that's probably more of a human thing than a magic thing."

"Then probably all of the mes-memorisation you have to do."

She smiled. "That's also any subject."

He scoffed, putting his hand on top of hers on his cheek and moving it in between them, still holding it. "Not all magic is good and sometimes it shows you...terrible things."

She opened her mouth and then closed it, squeezing his hand.

"Alright then, what's the most beautiful thing you've seen magic do?"

He shifted from his place on the sofa, raising into a sitting position. Sophie sat up too, sitting cross-legged on the couch behind him. He grabbed his wand sitting on the coffee table and brought it up. She put her hand on his back and despite not having the concentration to do the difficult incantation, the warmth of her hand seemed to seep into the slightly slurred words of the spell and the stag burst out without any struggle anyway.

He heard her small gasp as the stag's warm and calming presence filled the small living space, his large antlers moving through the ceiling light, his graceful legs crossing through the table until he was stopped in front of them. Harry turned to see her reaction. The white glow of the patronus made her look paler, not in a sickly way, but as though she too was glowing. Her long, wild hair had fallen out of it's bun ages ago and was a shimmering pale gold around her face. She reached out her hand that, like her eye contact with the stag, was unwavering. Her fingertips reached forward and nearly brushed the fine silver hairs on his snout, but he dissipated the way they always do.

Her hand fell slowly down to her side and she turned to look at him, her eyes wide and full of emotions he couldn't read. She slowly laid back down, one tear rolling from the edge of her eye to the bridge of her nose and dropping off into the fabric of the couch. He laid down again too and put his hand on her cheek.

"I do know one thing for certain, Harry. You're a good man."

He frowned, brushing away another tear before it could fall.

"How do you know that for certain? Sometimes I don't even know."

She took a shaky breath and put her hand on his cheek as well. "Only a good man could make something as … as good as that."

"They didn't even make it to the bedroom this time."

Even through the tiredness and the pounding in his head, he could recognise Ron's voice. What he couldn't recognize was the grainy texture under his check, or the soft warmth under his hand. It felt like slow, even warm air was being pushed against his chest, too, which was odd, but not altogether unpleasant. It sort of felt like he was sleeping with someone.

Harry opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the bright sun coming through the opened curtains.

Sophie's hair was spread out by his face, her pale face still dead to the world as she breathed into his chest, their hands intertwined between them, their legs tangled together.

Harry sighed, turning reluctantly to the scene he knew must be behind him.

Ron stood there, his arms crossed and posture disapproving, but his face was warring between amusement and smirking.

Hermione was behind him, a more serious frown on her face. Their argument swam back to him. He could imagine what she thought of this.

He turned back over and shook Sophie's slim shoulder.

"Hey. We have to get up."

At first she was clearly ignoring him, but then her face pulled into a pained look she sat up, clenching at her stomach. She stood, rolling over Harry's legs, and walked at a quick pace past Ron and Hermione, not even looking at them, to the toilet. She closed the door with a sharp click behind her, which did little to dull the sounds of her retching.

Ron and Hermione turned back towards Harry, who was already standing up and walking towards the cabinet. The door snapped closed just as he opened it and he turned to glare at Hermione.

"You don't deserve to have the hangover potion, Harry Potter. After what we talked about yesterday, I find you snuggled up with her -"

"I told her about magic."

Hermione's voice stopped, her mouth falling open, mirroring Ron's. She recovered first. "That's illegal." She hissed out, stepping closer to him.

Harry shrugged.

She moved passed Ron, crossing her arms. "You were part of the enforcement of magical law until just a few weeks ago, if you remember?"

"So have me arrested then."

Hermione's eyes narrowed and her fingers clenched on her arms. He swallowed, wondering if she was going to do it. After all, one didn't challenge Hermione without being prepared to face the consequences.

Ron put her hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Hermione sighed. "I guess you wouldn't be you without an incredible amount of recklessness."

There was a distant flushing sound and then the sound of soft footsteps coming down the hallway. Sophie peered around the corner and flushed as Hermione and Ron turned to look at her.

"Congratulations on your engagement." Ron's sarcasm could cut through any hangover haze.

Sophie's eyes bounced from Ron to Hermione to Harry as she stepped further into the room. "What?"

"You and Harry are engaged now."

Her eyes widened. "Is...is that a magic thing? Like if you sleep in the same space twice you're automatically engaged, because I have to say that seems very archaic. Or else I'm not remember something very important from last night."

Ron smiled while Hermione shook her head.

Harry was pulling at the cabinet's handle. It remained fast. "No. They're making a joke about our laws. You're not supposed to know about magic, so you can't tell anyone."

He tried pulling one last time before he glared back at Hermione, who just raised her eyebrows at him.

"Let's go Sophie, let's get some fried food and coffee. We don't need to deal with this."

Harry grabbed her hand as he passed, pulling her towards the door.

She looked back over her shoulder. "Please come with."

Harry stopped, looking down at her and then looking back at Ron and Hermione. "Fine."

They were sat in a corner booth of the crowded cafe, Harry and Sophie nursing coffee while Hermione and Ron stared at them.

Eventually Sophie cleared her throat. "I can't imagine what impression you have of me. I promise I'm not always like this. I'm rarely like this. It seems that Harry just drives me to drink." She let out a weak laugh.

Hermione leaned forward. "I'm so sorry. We aren't disapproving of you or anything like that. I didn't mean to give that impression."

Ron nodded. "Would be a little hypocritical of me to get all judgey because of a few drinks."

Harry snorted, him and Ron grinning at each other across the table.

"The issue here isn't that, or anything about you. The issue here is that Harry thinks he's above the law and is putting you at great risk."

"I'm not going to let them do anything to her."

"And how can you promise that?"

"I'd like to see them try me."

Sophie glanced between them all. They were all silent as the waitress came and dropped their food off. "Who is they?"

"The Ministry of Magic. I don't know how much Harry told you…"

Sophie nodded her head. "He told me enough to know that you all have a government and there are strict rules about people like me knowing about people like you all. Do they have special teams that deal with people like me when we find out or something? I suppose it doesn't matter though. I mean, I know neither of you have any reason to believe that I won't tell anyone, but I hope that Harry trusts me enough to know I won't say anything."

She glanced at him and he grinned.

"Thank you Sophie, but that's not the real issue. I'm more worried about another wizard or witch noticing you and them telling. It doesn't matter if we trust you, the Ministry won't take our word for it and will erase your memories."

Sophie paled, looking at Harry with wide eyes.

He shook his head. "I wouldn't let that happen."

"I - I don't want that to happen. That seems really wrong."

"It is." Hermione's jaw clenched. "It is. But it's important that we remain secret. This is one tool to do so. In it's own way, it's also to protect you all."

Sophie tilted her head. "That's off."

Ron interrupted Hermione's reply. "All of you are so many steps behind me right now."

They all turned to look at him. "You two are now engaged."

They both turned a little pink. Harry put his head in his hand. "Ron, that's not -"

"I'm not saying you actually are or anything, you knobs. But say that someone gets noisy and makes a fuss about Sophie. Just say that you all are engaged. That's legal, you're allowed to tell muggles, that's non magic people, about magic if you're going to marry them now. I mean, that would be one hell of a headline, but -"

"Headline?" Sophie frowned.

"It could work." Harry was staring down at his hands. He looked over to Sophie. "It only needs to be brought up in case you're found out, which hopefully won't happen."

"But then you two would have to actually get married or, you know, "break up". If you two "break up" then you're still in the same spot as before."

Harry shrugged. "We'd cross that bridge when we get to it. The point is to delay any oblivating should it become a problem." He turned to her again. "So, basically, if you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of angry wizards, just say we're engaged."

She stared at him, then glanced at Ron and Hermione and took a deep drink of her coffee. "That has to be the weirdest sentence anyone has ever said to me in earnest."

She bit into her toast as they all laughed. "I keep thinking that this is a very long, very vivid dream I'm having. I'll be terribly disappointed when I wake up."

Harry smiled at her. "I'll just have to keep reminding it's real then."

She smiled back while Ron and Hermione looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Ron and Hermione were in the kitchen, staring at black lumps burned onto the bottom of the frying pan.

"What have you done?"

They both jumped and turned around, looking very guilty.

"Harry! You look less dead now, mate. Did you have a good kip?"

Harry didn't answer, just gesturing to the pan that they were unsuccessfully hiding behind their backs with raised eyebrows.

"We…" She sighed. "We were going to make some eggs but we got distracted and, well…"

Harry moved between them and jabbed the pan with his wand, removing the eggs and most of the gritty ash, but there was still a black rough patch that didn't want to seem to leave.

"This was my favorite frying pan." He looked back at them, his shoulders drooping.

Hermione took it from him, gently, her face sheepish. "Sorry, Harry. I'll buy you another one."

Ron pulled out his wand and vanished the pan away. "At least it smells better in here now."

They sat down as Harry pulled leftovers out from the freezer. "Hermione, how is it possible you are great at everything else and so bad at this?"

"It wasn't my fault! Ron's the one who came up and … and distracted me."

Harry pulled a face. "Glad I woke up when I did then."

"You don't have the right to complain anymore. Just this morning I walk in to see you snuggled all close like a tiny kitten with Sophie. Not that I'm mad about it really. I'm happy you two finally got together -"

"We haven't." He looked back at them from his crouched position in front of the oven. "Why would you think that?"

Both of them scoffed in disbelief. "You can't be serious?"

"Maybe because you were snuggling?"

"Or maybe because you told her about magic?"

"Also, you're kind of engaged to her."

"I'm not engaged! That's just a precaution. We talked a lot last night and just fell asleep that way. And she guessed, I didn't tell her first." He sat down at the table with them. "I actually need to ask her about that still. She saw my wand a couple of times, but that wouldn't be enough to seriously ask if I can do real magic, would it? I think she must have seen something else."

"Don't change the subject, Harry. Are you not attracted to Sophie?"

Harry turned to look at her, opening his mouth to say yes, but the word didn't seem to want to come out. "It just wouldn't work."

"Why? You already told her about magic and she accepted it, very very well, I might add."

"Also, you didn't answer her question."

"I- I don't think it matters, the point is that I'm not trying to date Sophie."

"Merlin Harry, answer the question."

He pulled his hand through his hair, gritting his teeth. "Yeah, of course I think she's good looking. She's obviously very cute, you know, tiny, but that just seems to make her liveliness more noticeable. But like I said, I don't think it's either or nor there."

"Why?" Hermione looked frustrated enough to spit.

"Because I'm just going to fuck it up." Harry stood, moving around the table to check in the oven. He could feel their stares on his back.

"Harry...That's… Why would you think that?"

He spoke quietly, still staring into the oven. "It's just too much, isn't it? It's one thing to accept that I'm a wizard, but what about everything else? The fame, the war, my role in it, everything. It's too much for me, so what would it be like for her? It was too much for Ginny. I like that Sohpie doesn't have to deal with it."

"You're not something to be … to be dealt with or something, it's not like that-"

He stood up and leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. "Oh, like you didn't get people vandalizing Weasley Wizard Wheezes hoping that I would come and investigate?"

Ron's eyes widened. "How'd you hear about that?"

"Or like everytime Hermione has a success it's not because she's brilliant and works really hard, no, people have to go around saying that it's just because she's my friend, because she's a war hero."

Hermione shook her head, "That's entirely not your fault though. People are going to-"

"Or what about Ginny? She couldn't get ahead in quidditch because everyone only cared about how she was dating me."

"So what, you're just going to be single for the rest of your life?"

Harry shrugged, clenching his jaw. "People will get over it eventually and then maybe... The point is, you two idiots made your choice a long time ago to get involved in all this mess, and now you're both famous in your own right and it's too late to do anything about it. But Ginny was able to get away from it all and it's been a relief. Why would I drag Sophie into it? I've told her about magic and maybe I'll even tell her about the rest, but if we're just friends then it doesn't become her problem. Dean, Neville, Seamus, Luna, Bill, Charlie, everybody else doesn't get bothered by it too much, just being my friend. And more importantly no one knows her at all. No one bothers her now, so if we just stay friends then it won't be a problem."

Hermione was staring down at her hands clasped in front of her. "You liked that she was a muggle when you first started seeing her, didn't you?"

He thought about denying it. "Yes."

"Because you haven't felt at home in the wizarding world in a long time, have you?"

"I'll always be a wizard. I wouldn't give up the wizarding world for anything. I just wanted..."

"A break?" Ron interjected, looking oddly tired.

Hermione shook her head, "But then she became a real friend and now… but don't you see, Harry? That's the whole issue with your entire mindset. You can't control feelings. At first you thought she was nice and she was a good break from everything, then she was a good friend and you wanted to get closer to her, felt bad about lying, and now you're trying to say that you'll just stay friends, but how can you know? What if she starts dating someone else, would you be okay with it? You weren't okay with lying to her after a while, what makes you think hiding your feelings will be easier-"

"I don't know, alright! I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing at all. But the idea of losing her friendship now is … is just too sad. And I want to protect her from all my stupid baggage, so I don't know what to do. The best thing I can think of is being friends. I can handle my feelings that much. Lying to her felt wrong, but it isn't wrong just being friends. I can't say I'd be thrilled if she started dating someone else, but I'll deal with it."

"Rather than deciding all this on your own, why don't you talk to her about it, explain-"

"Explain what? Hey, I know we have fun and you enjoy watching me fall in fountains and I enjoy watching you tell off complete arseholes, want to have your privacy completely stripped away while I mope about how messed up everything got? Oh, also, because you happen to not have magic and you're dating me, the likelihood of some crazy wizards coming after you seems very high. Does that sound like a good time? Come on you two, don't pretend that dating me would only have some small hiccups and she would be totally fine after a sit down and chat over tea."

Ron shook his head. "Look, I don't know how to argue with all that, but it doesn't sound right. You're allowed to be happy and if she makes you happy, then the rest is all noise."

"What if, as you all become better friends and she learns about you, she still wants to give it a go?" Hermione's head was titled, her eyes calculating.

"Then she either wouldn't really understand or she would be completely mad. Look, maybe I fancy her a little, but being friends is the most important thing, that's enough. Actually the most important thing is that I don't drag her more into this. If I wasn't a selfish arsehole I wouldn't have even started all this but at the very least I can try to keep her safe."

Hermione closed her eyes. "Oh Harry, you're the least selfish person I've ever met."


	8. Troubles Halved

Witches and wizards.

Disappearing and reappearing in different places far away.

Glowing animals made of pure goodness.

Young people with burdened eyes and a lot of dead relatives.

Sophie had never been more distracted in her life. She kept zoning out when people spoke with her on the phone, she kept putting papers in wrong files. She knocked over her coffee twice today.

Some part of her couldn't believe that she was still here, ordering coffee and escorting people to conference rooms. In all the many books she has read, no one figures out there is a secret world of magical people and creatures and then...goes back to work the next day.

The more it sunk in, the more she understood why they kept it all a secret. It would completely change everything if everyone knew. She went back to work the next day because that world has always existed, and her learning about it doesn't mean that she suddenly has to stop earning money. Or that she now has to embark on a quest to defeat some generic evil or something.

It doesn't suddenly make her magical.

The strange mundaneness of it all; Harry quitting work, Ron running a business, Hermione being a government worker, it all was still so human. So modern. No dark villains or quests for long lost artifacts or dragon's hoarding gold. Ron and Hermione are in love and squabble like an old married couple. They get tired and order Indian. Ron complains about annoying customers. Harry is exactly like her in wondering about what the hell they are going to do for work in the future.

Everyonce and awhile, when she is sufficiently distracted at work, her mind will let the subject drop for a while until it is calm enough for her to wander back around to it. It always comes back to her like walking into a flooded room with an overflowing well, uncontainable, seemingly endless, and the center of it. She wondered, very seriously, if she was simply going mad. People in their early twenties can experience the onset of schizophrenia or other kinds of psychological breaks, it's a common time period for it.

She googled, she went through books in the library, but it didn't seem to match up. She didn't seek isolation, she didn't have paranoia with people. While her feelings were all over the place, the thoughts behind those feelings were very tracable. She was distracted at work but largely still able to do the tasks, though perhaps not as well.

She didn't want to be making it all up. Everytime she half convinced herself to maybe talk to a doctor, Harry's grinning face, telling her that he would just have to keep reminding her that this is all real, swam into mind's view, and she was back into the process of accepting all of this.

It's been exhausting. She needs to see him again as soon as possible or she might actually lose her mind.

Oak strode into the room and she stiffened, not sure of how to act. He quickly made it to her desk and paused as his eyes reached hers, his face going from bored to intense in an instant. She sat back, startled, trying to look more casual as he put his briefcase on her counter and reached in it. He looked back to her, making eye contact. She felt like she couldn't look away though she wanted to. Her mind's eye started flipping through her time with Harry, the magic he showed her, the conversation on the park bench, the moments before her told her everything, on the tube and that side street.

"Oak?"

He looked away and Sophie felt like she was released from whatever hold she was in, her eyes free to look over at Mr. Ruths, who was looking at Oak and her, eyes darting from one to the other.

"Is everything okay?" He raised his eyebrows at Sophie, who hesitated a second and then nodded.

"Ruths!" Oak snapped his briefcase closed and walked over to him, both of them turning toward the hallway, Oak not looking back.

Harry was looking at her with a small grin, turning her chair a little this way and that way. She sat cross legged on the bed.

"Oak's a wizard."

He raised his eyebrows. "How'd you know? Oak blends in with muggles really well."

"I saw him do that disappearing thing, you know, with the loud crack?"

Harry stopped moving his chair, his small grin falling to a firm line. "What?"

"He forgot his wallet on my desk and I went after him, thinking he must have gone to the car park. He was in the alley instead, he had his wand out and he disappeared with a loud crack."

Harry leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his mouth still in a firm line. "That was really stupid of him. If people knew, he would at least get a fine for being reckless with the Statue of Secrecy."

"I...think he might have wanted me to find out."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but the other day his briefcase fell over and his wand rolled out. And today...I…" She swallowed, uncertain, not knowing what to make of that unnaturally long eye contact, how it gripped her. "I think he knows I know now. I acted a little oddly when he came in. But I can't be sure. Do you think he'll report me?" That terrifying thought hadn't even occurred to her until just now.

Harry stood up, walked the one step over to her bed and sat down next to her, his hand on her arm. "I'll talk to him. If Oak tries to do anything about it, I'll just turn him to a toad or something. But I don't think that he will. I mean, he'd be in trouble too, since you figured it out from him being an idiot. I can't figure out why he'd want you to figure it out though? Maybe he was really just being reckless about it."

She opened her mouth to explain about the strange eye contact, but changed her mind. She has been over thinking a lot lately. "You're right, he probably just got overconfident because he spends so much time with us non-magic types."

Harry squeezed her arm once before moving further back on the bed, his back against the wall. "That makes sense. I'll talk to him about that too, he could get into a lot of trouble."

Sophie moved to sit next to him against the wall when her phone rang. "Sorry, I need to get this, might be a school calling back about a program I'm thinking about." At Harry's unbothered nod, she hopped off the bed and took the one step over to her desk, picking up the phone. "Hello?"

The person on the other end spoke for a while, Sophie's face becoming paler and more frantic as they spoke. Harry moved to the edge of the bed and stood, looking concerned.

"Okay, which hospital again? I mean, what's the address?" She looked around frantically, snatching up a pen and notebook on her desk with shaking hands. "Okay, thank you. Bye."

She looked at Harry with wide eyes. "My brother's been in an accident. My parents asked hospital to call me as they are on their way. I-I'm not sure what to do, it's going to take a couple of hours to get there, I -"

"I'll take you." Harry pulled out his wand.

Her eyes widened in wonder as she remembered all over again. "Right, brillant, thank you Harry!" She grabbed her bag and turned to look at him, apprehension keeping her face pale. She grabbed his hand and looked up at him with raised eyebrows.

"Um, I would like to see the address, I'll need to look it up first."

She nodded, reaching over for her notepad and showing it to him. She tried not to flinch in surprise when a large map of England unfurled itself from the tip of his wand, floating in the room as those suspended from wires in the ceiling. He tapped it add said the address of the hospital and watched closely as the map moved further west and then slowly zoomed in, until the whole map showed only the outside of the hospital, people walking in and out, a person wearing white looking tired and smoking a cigarette leaning against one pillar.

He waved his wand sharply and the map rolled closed with a snap and sucked itself back into his wand. "I'm ready now."

Only the need to know how her brother was doing stopped an outpouring of questions that sprung to mind. She silently grabbed his hand again and prepared herself for the deeply uncomfortable feeling of compressed, twisting chaos.

They appeared behind tall shrubbery, staying still as clicking heels stopped and turned, their owner obscured by the green leaves. After a few seconds and a barely audible sigh, the heels clicked on. They waited a minute longer, then tumbled out of the shrubbery, badly startling a tired looking man walking towards his car, who glanced from them to the shub with raised eyebrows.

Harry ignored him and grabbed her hand, walking with her at a brisk pace to the reception desk.

"Hello, I'm here to see my brother, Micheal?"

"Last name?"

"Wade."

She gripped his hand tighter as the receptionist calmly clicked through different screens and glanced down the chart to her right.

"Right. Micheal Wade is on the third floor. Please go to the lifts to your left there and then the reception desk for that floor will be right in front of you."

They said their thanks and walked to the lifts. She had to fight back the urge to swear as the lifts numbers slowly moved down. As they got in, she realised that her hand hurt from gripping Harry's so tightly. She loosened her hold and tried to pull away, but Harry just shrugged at her frown and kept her hand in his. He started rubbing his thumb on the back of her hand and she took a shaky breath.

The receptionist on the third floor raised her eyebrows at them as they said who they were there for. "You got here very quickly. I called you probably less than then minutes ago."

Sophie blinked, uncertain how to respond. Harry gave an off sounding chuckle. "We were right in the area. How is he?"

The receptionist opened her mouth to say more, but then shook her head and instead glanced through the charts piled on the desk next to her. "Wade, Wade, Wade… Here he is, it looks like he was in a traffic accident, he broke his leg and has pretty severe whiplash and a potential head injury as he hasn't regained consciousness. If you wait over there, the doctor will come out to speak to you as soon as we have more information." She gestured over the cluster of stained gray chairs, her eyes a practised kind of kind.

She lingered at the desk, her mind's eye imagining snapping the chart from the receptionist's hands, of bursting into the room to see how he's doing, but she knew she would just have to wait, no matter how much she didn't want to. She felt Harry gently pull her away, sitting her down in one of the chairs, his arm resting around the back of it. She put her head in her hands and waited, trying not to think of anything and just focus on the feeling of Harry's warm hand making small circles on her back.

Some time later, which could have been a half hour or several years as time was moving so strangely, she heard fast paced walking and haggard voices move down the hallway. She glanced up to see her parents walk right past her, their eyes focused solely on the reception desk. She stood too, glancing back at Harry. "My parents are here."

He swallowed and nodded, looking uncomfortable, and then they moved towards desk just as her mum shouted, "What do you mean possible head injury? Could you possibly say something more vague and ominous sounding? Where is the doctor?"

The receptionist stammered something, which was quickly drowned out by her Mum's sharp voice, "See that you do. If we don't hear anything from you in at least ten minutes I will walk around this hospital myself!"

Her dad shook his head and they both turned away from the desk, stopping at the sight of them coming up to them. Her mum let out a choked sound and threw her arms around her. "Sophie, Sophie I'm so glad you're here! How on earth did you get here so fast? I thought you were in the city? " Her mother stepped back and looked at Harry, joining her father who was already looking at him with his head tilted to the side a little, a small frown on his face.

Sophie glanced between them all, feeling almost too stressed to feel awkward. "Mum, Dad, this is my good friend Harry. Harry, this is Charles and Elizabeth Wade, my mum and dad."

Sohpie's mum face changed from the picture of anxiety it was to a wide smile, if only for a second, as she reached for his hand. "Hello! Sophie's told us so much about you."

"She has?" Charles said, reaching forward to shake his hand too.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, "Yes, remember, her new friend, the one with the mysterious job?"

"Ah, the spy!" Charles looked back at him with renewed interest.

"I-I'm not a spy, unfortunately, or I guess fortunately, if you think about it. Nice to meet you both but, um, now that you're here, perhaps I should leave you all to your family business?"

"Yes, well, it might be best. No reason for you to sit around feeling anxious with us. You've done so much already, coming here with Sophie, I'm sure she appreciates it. If everything tur-turns out alright, we would love to have you over for dinner sometime?" Her mum's voice wobbled a little, and she started looking around the hall for a doctor of any kind.

Sophie turned to Harry, fighting the urge to tell him to please stay. Instead she pulled him into a gentle hug, which he stiffly returned . "Thank you for everything Harry, I'll keep you updated. Like Mum said, please do come to dinner sometime, I'll call you to set it up and tell you what has happened."

She stepped away and looked up at him. He gave her hand a small squeeze, said he would come to dinner and hopefully talk to her parents under better circumstances , that it was nice to meet them. He then walked slowly away as a doctor was finally cornered by Elizabeth, rounding the corner with a silent wave.

He was in love with her. He didn't like it, but what could he do. Why did Hermione have to be right all the time? It was impossible to sit there and watch her be in pain. He strategised different ways to sneak into her brother's room somehow and magic him all better, just to spare her another second of worry, but then he would have to obliviate doctors and nurses and who knows who else. He wasn't even sure if the magic healing would stay with a muggle. He wasn't even sure if his healing charms would work, particularly the potential brain injury, as those spells were quite complex and healing magic wasn't his strongest area.

But he had wanted to, desperately, he had to acknowledge that, at least to himself. He wanted to scoop up her hunched form and stuff her in his coat pocket and keep her there, safe from harm and bad news.

He shouldn't have wanted to do that. It wasn't that he wouldn't care if a different friend's family was injured. He would have accompanied any of them and would have stayed until their family came, he would have felt for them, been worried. But he wouldn't have felt like that. Like it was a stab in his own heart to see them like that. It wouldn't have been so personal. It shouldn't have been.

How far was he going to go with this? How selfish was he going to be? He would have to hide her from most of his world unless they were in a de facto engagement, and who wants to be hidden like some kind of dirty secret? Or say he lost his mind completely and went for it, asked her out and she said yes and they went public with it. She would be hounded by the press and very likely threatened by lingering crazed blood purists.

He groaned as he put his head in his hands. He got himself into this mess.

The phone rang and his heart speed up.

"Hello?"

"Harry, good news, the idiot is alright!" Her voice was bright and full of happy relief. Harry felt himself smiling.

"That's great! So he doesn't have any brain injury?"

"No, a mild concussion, his neck hurts pretty bad but it's just the muscles and his leg is broken, but I guess it was a pretty clean break and shouldn't take too long to heal, so that's all good news. He's quite grumpy though, Mum's making a fuss. But I don't know what he expected, my mum's nervous on any given day, let alone when her only baby boy is injured."

"Ron's mum is the same way, she even has a clock that tells her where everyone is all the time."

"Isn't that kind of invasive?"

"A little, but it's not too bad, not overly specific or anything. One of the options is mortal peril, for example."

"My mum would kill for that, especially after today. They're going to take Micheal home and make sure he's comfortable, at least until he's a bit more mobile. Speaking of, since he is going to be at my parent's house for a little while, they wanted to know if you could around next Saturday for dinner? The whole family will be there, is the idea."

"S-sure." He swallowed, wondering if he was going to make a fool of himself.

There was a slight sigh, "You don't have to, it's not like you're my boyfriend or something. I can make up an excuse and push it off until they let it go."

He felt his stomach clench. This would be the perfect opportunity to create some space. "N-No. I would love to have dinner with your family." He thumped his head against the wall. "You're parents seem like nice people."

"They have their moments. Alright then, I'll let them know!" He could hear the smile in her voice.

"I'm going to go back home now, as there isn't too much to do here expect annoy him, which I feel somewhat more guilty about than usual, what with his pain and all."

"Do you want me to come pick you up?"

There was a beat of silence. "No, I-I think I better go home the usual way."

"Oh, sure." He couldn't quite keep the confusion out of his voice.

"It's just that I'm worried I'll get too used to it, you know? And then I'll start to expect it. And then I'll be annoyed that you won't do it for some reason and will just take you for granted. I don't want that. I don't want to be one of those muggles that you all worry about."

"I offered though?"

"Yes, and I really appreciate it. But I want to remind myself not to depend on it, you know?"

He felt inexplicably frustrated. "I don't mind, really."

"I know, you're a great friend. This is less to do with you and more to do with me. It's just, you know, I'm trying to remind myself, like I said."

He clenched his jaw and took a breath. "Yeah. Right. But don't feel like you can't reach out to me if you're in a jam or anything, anytime."

Her voice was soft and sweet. "I know, Harry, don't worry."

He barely glanced up from the sofa as Ron and Hermione walked in from their dinner date.

"Oh look, our moody log somehow migrated to the living room." Ron's ears and cheeks were a little red, Hermione's grin a little too broad. A sure sign they'd been drinking.

Harry grunted, staring up at the ceiling.

"Oooohh, it even makes noise now." Hermione looked down at him with slightly unfocused eyes.

He looked over at them as they sat down on the opposite sofa, grinning and whispering loudly to each other.

"Do you suppose it knows any songs?"

"The enchanted logs of the Amazon rainforest only sing depressing sea shanties, I hope this one isn't like that."

"Wha-depressing sea shanties? How on earth did they learn those in the middle of the forest?"

Hermione furrowed her brow, "I can't remember exactly. I think it might have been some lost, bored wizard explorers that did it."

Ron smiled at her, "How much did you drink that you can't remember something exactly?"

She huffed, taking a half hearted swipe at his arm, before they broke down into giggles.

Harry didn't want to spoil their mood, but he felt like he was going crazy. "I'm in love with Sophie."

They both stopped laughing abruptly, staring at him with wide eyes.

Hermione spoke first. "No shit."

Ron threw his head back and laughed, his face turning redder. "H-Hermione!"

"What? He's been really dense about this. What made you realise it finally?"

He frowned at them, annoyed by their flippant attitude. "Her brother got into a car accident."

Their smiles dropped off their faces as the words sunk in. "Is he alright?"

"Yeah, he's banged up and broke his leg, but he'll be fine."

Hermione's face was more back to normal, though she swayed slightly in her seat. "And that made you admit it?"

"She was upset and scared and I… didn't like it."

Hermione nodded in understanding, looking thoughtful. Ron snorted. "You'd have to be a real evil type to like something like that though."

"What Harry means to say is that he felt protective of her."

Harry looked down at his hands.

"Do you think that she likes you, mate?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth before saying, "I don't know. I think she likes me, I'm important to her, but, I don't know. I think she's trying to distance herself. I offered to take her home from the hospital, I mean, she'll have to go two hours by train otherwise, but she said no."

Hermione leaned against Ron, "Why?"

He shrugged, "She said that she didn't want to depend on it and take me for granted."

Hermione's smile widened. "She definitely likes you, Harry. I mean that was obvious from the start. But that clenches it for me."

"Why?" Ron and Harry said at the same time.

"Because you told her you aren't interested. She's trying to make some distance to protect herself and her feelings."

Harry shook his head. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to push her away but.." he made a broad swiping gesture with his arm, as though to indicate his whole life.

"I can't believe that I'm saying this, but follow your heart Harry."

"You are drunk." Ron snorted.

Hermione jabbed him in the side. "And most importantly, tell her. Tell her everything and let her choose. That's all you can do."

Harry stood in the middle of Flourish and Blotts, listening as the owner hummed through his morning routine. The store had just opened a minute before. It was the only time of day when there weren't any crowds and he could walk around in his invisibility cloak.

He was staring at a shelves entirely filled with his own face and name. There were life biographies hundreds of pages thick, despite his life being relatively short so far. There were books that focused on certain years, like the one with the Triwizard Tournament press photos from fourth year on the cover for a book focusing on Voldemort's return. There were factual biographies written dryly, as though to be sound more truthful, fiction that was based on his story but guiltlessly taking liberties.

He plucked one of the thick volumes of his life off one of the shelves and flipped to a random page. "It was known, even then, what an exceptional wizard he was. Remember at this point he thwarted Voldemort getting the Philosopher's Stone and killed a Basilisk with Gryffindor's own sword. It was no surprise to his teachers that he could, by the end of third year, create a full corporal patronus. In this chapter-"

Harry snapped the book closed and placed it on the shelf. This wasn't going to work. This was all going to make him out to be some sort of marvel, some advanced amazing wizard that's the next Merlin. He couldn't show her that. She would get the wrong idea.

He would have to suck it up and explain it to her himself.

But it all wasn't clear to himself, even. How to explain how he succeeded, what it meant, how he had failed, what that meant. What it all meant.

He felt overwhelmed as he left the shop.


	9. Master of Death

Her hair was long and red, a deep auburn with almost golden highlights and darker, deeper notes of soft browns mixed together, giving it all sort of a shimmering quality. Her skin was alabaster and flawless, her body toned and lithe. Sophie could understand why Harry was probably still in love with her, she was half in love with her herself. She turned to look at Harry with her mouth half open, but rather than him being stuttering and red faced, or pale and anxious, or anything else she had imagined when she pictured him running into The Mysterious Ginny Weasley, he just kind of looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh...Oh, I thought… Ron said that… I'm here to pick up his present for Hermione, you know, for the surprise? And he said that, well, that…"

"I wouldn't be here?"

She nodded, her eyes, for the first time since coming in through the fireplace, looked around the room and landed on Sophie. Her shoulders stiffened just a little, but she didn't frown. Instead she glanced rapidly between Harry and her, the strangest of half smiles on her face. "I see I interrupted something, if I could just grab -"

"I know where everything is for her, I'll - I'll go collect her really quick. Just a second." He paused at the door way, opening his mouth to say something, but then shook his head and darted down the hallway.

"Ron's mentioned you, Sophie right?. You're a muggle?"

Sophie nodded, "Harry's mentioned you before as well."

She sighed. "I hope not all bad things?"

"The only bad things he says about it all are about himself, you know how he is."

Her strange half smile was back. "Yeah, that is how he is."

There was a long pause. They heard loud thumps from down the hall, followed by a faint voice that could only be swearing.

"So, um, this has to have been quite the transition for you."

Sophie gave a small laugh, "You have no idea. I keep falling asleep thinking that I'll wake up the next day and this will all be a dream."

Ginny's smile softened into something happier. "I think it's great, in a way, you know, because Harry doesn't make friends easily and I can't blame him, what with the fame, so it's kind of … I don't know, comforting, that we all can know for sure that you're friends for the sake of being friends with him."

She replayed what she just said a couple of times over in her head, but just couldn't make sense of it. "Fame?"

Ginny's eyes widened.

They both turned towards the door as Harry rushed through it. "This kneazle did not want to get in this box, I'm sorry." This was punctuated by a loud hiss from the bright blue box with holes punched in the top on it. Harry had to grip it tighter as the box suddenly jerked. "Why couldn't he just have given her to Hermione here? It seems stupid to make her angry by shoving her in a box and then just bringing her back here anyway?"

She took the box away from him, not looking him in the eye. "Ah, yes, well, Ron is stupid in general, so there's that. So, um, yeah, I'm going to go…"

She walked back towards the fireplace and stepped into the green flames, biting her lip as she made eye contact with Sophie. "I'll see you both around."

They waved as she swirled away.

"Ginny said you're famous?" Sophie remembered, all of a sudden, Oak saying something similar once too, before she really knew everything.

Or thought she knew everything.

Harry flushed, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times. "Yeah, I am, I guess. In the wizarding world."

She sat back. How much was there to him? What other things did she not know? She figured, with this new little development, quite a lot.

"Why?"

Harry sat down next to her on the sofa, putting his elbows on his knees and rubbing the back of his neck. "Would you believe that I'm a really great singer?"

She laughed. "We've gone drinking one too many times for me not to know what kind of singer you are. So no."

He flashed a short grin before nodding to himself. "There was a bad wizard a few years ago who was trying to take over the wizarding world, probably the muggle one too, if he had time. I stopped him."

"A bad wizard?" She glanced at the mantle at the pictures of all the dead relatives and others. "Was there a war or something?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"You mean there was a war between wizards and we, that's to say us non-magical people, just … didn't notice?"

Harry shrugged. "You all did notice. It went on for a couple of years three years ago, you know…"

"The bridge collapse then?"

"Yeah, and the fire at that one tall building."

"What about the tube explosion?"

"That one too. Even all that bad weather was us."

Her mind couldn't seem to catch up. It had been a rough few years, everything seemed kind of hopeless, and all this random, nonsensical violence… There had been a reason. "It might have been good to know why all that was happening."

He sat back as well, looking at her carefully. "Some of you did. The Prime Minister, at least. I know because my former boss used to guard him."

She rubbed her forehead. "One bad wizard was doing all that?"

"Him and his followers."

"Why?"

"Because he wanted power. But people followed him because he hated muggles and witches and wizards who had muggle families. He thought that we should rule over you all, at least in secret. He thought that we should exercise our powers against you all. He also thought that people like Hermione, whose parents are both muggles, were making the wizarding world less, I don't know, pure, or powerful. Though that doesn't really have anything to do with anything. Mostly he just wanted to control people."

"And you stopped him?"

He closed his eyes. Sophie thought he looked suddenly exhausted. "Yeah."

"But… three years ago you would have been only seventeen…"

"It's a long story, but basically this wizard, his name was Voldemort, was out to get me. So I had to stop him and I did, after awhile."

She didn't know what to say. She had thought that maybe magic was mundane, modern, but here, in front of her, was a person who did have to defeat an evil wizard.

She learned of magic and then went to work the next day. Because she isn't magical.

But he is.

She felt like a different species.

She took his hand, which felt normal and warm. "This is a lot to take in, it's hard to wrap my head around a semi-secret war involving a bunch of people who wanted to control me and those like me with magic, you know? But... so, basically, you're a war hero? A well known one? How well known?"

He gripped her hand back and sighed. "I wish… I don't suppose it matters what I wish, but the reality of the situation is… I mean, I'm not famous in the muggle world, am I? It's kind of like being very famous in a niche sport or something, isn't it? It's not a big deal in a lot of ways. I mean, it doesn't change anything with you, in - in the muggle world."

She pulled her hand away, leaving it curled around her other one in her lap. "But you don't live in the muggle world, do you? Not really. I mean, you work in the wizarding world, you went to school there, you shop there, you're government is there, everything is there, isn't it?"

Harry put his arms across his chest. "So? It isn't the whole world, is it?"

Her heart sank, though she couldn't figure out exactly why. "The wizarding world isn't important to you?"

"I already gave it everything, alright? And now it wants more from me, all the time, I can't even live there anymore. It's all horrible mess, is that what you want to hear?"

He had never really spoken to her like this before, a bitter edge to his voice, his body tense and leaning away from her.

"Yes. It is what I want to hear."

He looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"I mean, you're being a bit of an arse right now."

He scowled at her.

"But I still want to hear it. Because it's part of you. I think, I'm guessing, but I think that you are probably over complicating things."

He laughed in the same bitter way, "No, I'm not. I'm still… you don't even really know half of it. I - I, I shouldn't have done this, gotten you involved, I-" He wouldn't look at her, his shoulders were slumped inward, he seemed to be curling up into himself.

"You're a wizard and there is a wizarding world and you are very, very famous in that wizarding world to the point that it disrupts your life and you sought out the muggle world and my friendship because I'm not part of that world. And now that we're good friends you realise that it's fairly hard to compartmentalise people close to you, you want me to know about everything, but you're afraid of getting me too involved because so far every other thing that has been involved in your wizarding life, besides Ron and Hermione, has gone to shit. Am I right?"

She thought she was, a lot of things were starting to click into place. He was staring at her, a little slack jawed. "How-How could you possibly know all that?"

"I think my mind works a little better when adjusting to some crazy information, sometimes, I just...put it together. But Harry…"

She couldn't seem to continue now, her heart starting to beat loudly in her ears. She could feel his eyes on the side of her head, but she couldn't look at him. "You see, I still think that you're over complicating things because, at the end of the day, I l-like you, and that's really all there is to it, isn't it? The rest is just circumstance and working out -"

He grabbed her shoulders, suddenly. She was so startled that she looked him directly in the eye. He looked desperate. "No. Please. Don't make this harder."

She swallowed thickly. "I can't help it. It's too late, I already like you. I like you a lot. The rest is prioritising -"

"No. You don't understand, you can't understand, if you did, you wouldn't-"

She put her hand on his cheek. "Isn't it enough that I want to understand? That's not how feelings work, you know, you aren't going to explain to me about how something happened, or how you've done something you regret and then I'm going to decide that it's too much, that I don't like you anymore and turn off my feelings, that's not how it works -"

"It is how it works. It is. Right now it's all ... you think you have these feelings, but then you'll receive threats from random blood purists, and then you won't have a moment of privacy because people will start snooping around, and then you'll have to keep secrets from your family, and then it's all too much, don't you see? I'm not worth all this aggravation, I shouldn't have even -"

She put her other hand on his other cheek and held his face gently while her words were infatic. "First, I'm not Ginny. Things that hurt her or would have put her off might not be the same for me, we can't know unless we try. And that's the second point. You can't just decide on your own that this isn't going to all work out. The fear of things ending can't stop you from even starting -"

"I'm just tired, Sophie. I can't do this anymore. I can't try and then have it fall through, I just want it to work, I want things to be safe, and there is just too much -"

"But isn't that why you went forward with getting to know me, because it's safer?"

"No. It was easier. I was stupid and short sighted and irresponsible -"

She shook his head, just a little. "Good lord, Harry, you haven't assigned me to a life of horror or something. I just want to date you."

It felt good to say it, even if his face looked weary, his eyes shadowed. At least it was out there. For a second he leaned his cheek into her hand, his face softened. His eyes slowly closed, and when he opened them again, his whole face had changed into something cold. He pulled her hands away gently but firmly. "You should probably go."

She felt her lips shake and her throat tighten. She clenched her fists. She wouldn't cry. "You're being an idiot. I mean, if you don't feel the same, that's one thing of course, but I don't think that's it."

He stood. "I'm sorry."

She stood too. "No you're not. You think you're being all self-sacrificing and noble, but you're just running away."

His jaw clenched and he walked to the door. She followed behind him, grabbing her purse and her shoes as she went.

He opened the door for her, his face still set. She adruptly felt beyond furious. She stood straight, lifted her chin, and stared him in the eye. "I'll have you know, I'm not going to take some half-assed apology, when you figure things out, or if you do. I'm not going to take anything but honesty from you. So don't you even think about calling me or popping by unless it's to meet me face to face, instead of shielding away. Do you understand?"

"Yes." His jaw clenched again. He looked away first. She turned away from him and marched passed him into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her with a slam.

"That sounds dramatic." Ron was watching Hermione's new half kneazle, Athena, sniff his pile of carefully preserved "The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle" comics with squinted eyes.

Hermione was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at Harry. "I have to say, I'm surprised at you. You're the bravest person I've ever met, you know. This isn't like you."

Harry had to fight the urge to throw something at her. "You know, Hermione, sometimes you're incredibly judgemental."

"Oi." Harry turned to look at Ron, his face surprisingly serious. "We know you're emotions are in a tough place right now, but you don't get to insult Hermione just because she's telling you something you don't like to hear."

He bit back a steady stream of less than friendly retorts. He wasn't fifteen anymore. "Right. Right. Sorry."

That sat in silence for a second. "It's just both you and Sophie seem to be under the same impression that I'm running away from something, but my concerns are serious -"

"It's not that I'm trying to dismiss your fears, you know." Hermione stood, plucking the still small half kneazle from the bedside table. "I think you're right, really. It's just, the way that you go about it, it seems like you're saying excuses. If you wanted it to work out, you'd come up with plans, or talk about options, or something, but instead you just shut it all down. I can't imagine how Sophie feels, telling you she likes you and you just kicking her out."

Harry winced, his insides knotting. "That wasn't how I, I wish that… Why is she so smart though? And why am I so bad at lying? I didn't want to do that. I didn't know what else to do." He flopped backward against the floor, rubbing his hand through his hair in agitation.

"It's not just Sophie." Hermione was standing over him, Athena in her arms. "It seems like you're running away in general, Harry. You won't decide what you want to do, you refuse to go to Diagon Alley, you're even avoiding The Burrow."

She looked like a benevolent giant from this angle.

"I had this image, in my head, a vague daydream I wouldn't let myself think on too long, that I sort of held on to in sixth year and in the tent. I would defeat Voldemort and then start dating Ginny and she would graduate and become a quidditch star, and I would become an Auror. I would see Teddy a lot and Ginny would love him too. And when we were older, whenever Ginny felt like it, we would have however many kids she wanted, but I was hoping for three or maybe more. And we'd all be one happy Weasley family, and there would be ups and downs, there always are in life, but it would be good. Fulfilling and sweet and peaceful."

"Oh Harry." Hermione sat down next to him, cross legged. He pulled Athena from her arms and she came willingly, sitting silently on his chest until she started to purr as he pet her soft furry back.

"But I'm too ridiculous to be an Auror, too much to be with Ginny, too dangerous to be with Sophie, too famous to even walk down Diagon Alley. And now I'm even being too much of a moody prat to my friends, who just want to enjoy their anniversary."

He heard Ron stand up quickly and all at once he was standing over them. Ron reached down and placed Athena back in Hermione's arms, grabbed Harry's arm, pulled out his wand, and a horrible moment of compression later, they were in the middle of an orchid, Harry still on his back, Ron standing still standing over him.

"Ron, I don't have my wand on me and I'm not wearing any shoes."

"Tough. You won't need those common things anyway, not where we're going."

Harry sat up, looking around. The orchard seemed very familiar. He could hear a loud stream nearby. He twisted around a little and groaned. A small distance away sat a house on a hill, shaped like a rook.

Sophie stuffed the cupboard full of coffee filters and then returned back to her desk. There seemed to be a constant ache in her chest. She had no problem concentrating, but everything was done with a dull sort of ease. The only thing that sparked her interest seemed to be updates on how Micheal was doing.

At lunch she went to the library and used their computers to look through her childhood friend's social media. One was traveling, one was complaining about an exam, another took a selfie with a boy, their faces pushed so close together they might as well had been melding into one being. It was one of her friend's birthday and she posted an old photo of them together at a fancy dress party, dressed like a vampire and a cat. Her friend gave a heart react to it and said thank you. Though it hurt that she had grown apart from her friends, she was relieved that she didn't message to ask how she was doing. What would she say? Oh, never got around to Uni, instead now she get paid pennies to have lawyers blame her for small mishaps and things they forgot. Or perhaps she could talk about her most recent rejection because she couldn't let things go and just be friends with the only person she's made friends with in the last couple of years, who also happened to introduce her to a magical world where he's incredibly famous. No, instead she had to push it and try to force some poor lad who clearly wasn't ready yet to start dating her.

She wanted to beat her head against the wall. She blew it. She slammed the door on the guy she's crazy about, her only connection to the amazing world that she just learned about, all because she got impatient.

As she sat at her desk later, she received a second wind of inspiration. No. She didn't blow it. He did. He was going to keep pushing and pulling her away and she wasn't going to play stupid games or let herself be hurt endlessly by some bloke. Even a very handsome, very sweet bloke who happens to have saved the world from some evil wizard, apparently.

Besides, she thought as Oak followed Mr. Ruths to his office, Harry wasn't exactly the only wizard she knew.

As Oak came out of his meeting, she waved him over. He raised his eyebrows in surprise but walked to her desk. She was careful not to make direct eye contact. "Could you do me a favor? I would ask Harry, but… anyway. Could you possibly get me to Diagon Alley?"

Oak's surprise turned into a broad smile.

"Ronald, you have much fewer Wrackspurts than you used to."

Harry rolled his eyes as Ron stood a little taller, actually looking a tiny bit chuffed at the odd compliment.

"Harry, unfortunately I can't say the same to you. I think you might have more than ever."

He glared at Ron's snort.

"What brings you both around this fine evening, anyway?" Luna turned away from them, continuing to pull off Dirigible Plums from their bushes and place them in a small wooden basket on the ground.

Harry shrugged, and both he and Luna turned to look at Ron, whose ears started to turn red. "Um, I don't know, to be honest. It's just that Harry was being all moody and stubborn and I thought, hey, Luna's good for a different kind of perspective, isn't she? So, yeah, here we are."

Luna positively beamed at him. "That's the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me. Thank you Ronald."

Ron's ears turned redder but he just shrugged. "I don't know if you should be thanking me just yet, really. I've brought this git along to get all moody at you too."

Harry scoffed, indignant. Both Ron and Luna looked at him.

"Hold on, I'll grab something. Please feel free to sit on the bench over there, it's too lovely a day to be indoors."

Harry and Ron sat down on a very rickety bench that seemed to be held together more with magic than anything else.

Ron turned to look at him. "The way I see it is you've got yourself in a bit of a rut, you know. The mind can get trapped in a circle, repeating the same useless thing over and over again. I should know, that's what the locket was like for me. Hell, it was like that before the locket too, just quieter. Sometimes you just have to try something new."

Harry looked back st the easy, non-fussed, but serious expression on Ron's face and felt an odd moment of joy. Ron was growing up. He suddenly seemed older, better, the full person Harry always knew he was. He smiled at him. "You're right. What the hell? Let's see what Luna has to say."

Ron slapped him on the back as Luna crossed the garden towards them, holding what seemed to be shiny copper horns. "Please hold these to your ears Harry."

"Wha?"

"These are Wrackspurt siphons. While we're talking, hold these up to your ears. It will help you think."

Careful to not look at the silently shaking Ron next to him, he slowly took the horns from Luna and raised them to his ears.

Ron couldn't hold it in anymore and snorted.

"Something funny Ronald?"

"N-No."

He didn't think that his mind felt clearer. Mostly things sounded somehow louder but farther away all at once.

"So, what's on your mind Harry?"

Harry explained what he had done to Sophie, who she was, his feelings of alienation from the wizarding world, his uncertainty. He tried not to feel too stupid, holding the horns to his head while saying all these, but it was impossible. But somehow that also made it all feel lighter, less serious.

Luna listened to him, sitting in the grass in front of him, her head slightly tilted, her large eyes almost unnervingly unblinking.

Harry's arms started to get tired as he finished talking. Luna stood on her knees and took over holding them up. "So, is your muggle friend magical?"

He blinked at her a couple of times. "Um, no. Isn't that what muggle means, not magical?"

Luna shook her head. "Magic doesn't make sense. It's not science, it's ability. The ability to transform one thing into another, to make nature bend to your will, to take thoughts and make them reality. We are gifted with this ability in the physical, real sense. But I think there are even witches and wizards that take the magical and make it mundane. They change this gift into a burden. And then there are muggles who are magical, who make things that we couldn't even dream of, music that makes you weep, art that makes you feel something you've never felt, huge buildings and elektricy things that can do so many things at once. And isn't that magical? So that's what I'm asking you, does your friend have ability to transform things?"

He didn't think that he would be able to explain this conversation to anyone else at a later time that made any sense to anyone, but sitting here in Luna's garden, Ron no longer laughing beside him, Dirigible Plums floating in a basket next to her, her wide blue eyes close and unavoidable as she held up horns to his ears, he thought he understood her well.

"Yeah. She does. She changed her gross little flat into a bright happy space, she changed her career and interests when they no longer made her happy, she changed how she reacted to guy who didn't treat her well. She turned bad news into a fun night. I changed her whole world by telling her about magic and she took it in stride."

Luna slowly lowered the horns and sat back. "Well then Harry Potter, she sounds, at the moment, like she might have some magic to teach you. It'd be best to talk to her."


	10. Love

It was a bit like The Shambles, if The Shambles had started doing hard core drugs. Nothing was at a right angle, everywhere were colors vibrant and clashing enough to hurt the eye. The signs were for things like newt eyes and caldrons, broomsticks and owls. At the top of the cluttered street was a massive grey building.

Oak stood next to her, having already transfigured her light blue work dress into a long robe with bell sleeves trimmed with the deepest of purple velvet. He moved them slightly out of the way as a woman wearing an honest to god pointed witches hat grunted with annoyance behind them.

"Try not to draw attention to yourself too much by gasping at everything, would you? Down the street on the left, a bit past the Owl Post, is a bookshop. I'll leave you to it."

She turned sharply toward him. "What? You aren't staying?"

"Time is money and Potter's girlfriend or not, I have other things to be doing. Also, I'm terrible at transfiguration spells, so that robe will probably only last a few hours, at most, before it turns back into your dress."

"Three hours? But…"

He let out his booming laugh, his head thrown back and almost touching the low hanging sign behind him. "I feel like a fairy godmother. Good luck." He turned and was already gone.

She gaped at the spot that he had just been standing and tried not to panic. Leaning against the wall, she catalogued the shops and the people walking about. Getting past...everything, it wasn't actually all that different than any main street. You had your pet shops, your clothing shops, your supply shops, your magical flying broom shops. She fought the hysterical urge to laugh. She jumped as someone appeared with a loud crack next to her. She moved further into the crevice of the wall and put her hand on her thumping heart.

Right, so, not a regular main street, but that was fine. She knew from all the witches and wizards she met that people were still people. There was an old man with a cane, telling a long sounding story to a young man with glassy looking eyes, who periodically nodded. Over there was a child pulling on her Mum's hand, asking to go back to the shop and couldn't she getting something. The mother gave an exasperated reply before the were out of earshot. A young man was speaking emphatically to a young woman who smiled enthusiastically back.

They were just people going about their day, running errands. And yes, some were wearing cloaks of the purest black, and some were wearing hats that seemed to change color completely in different lighting, and yes, there were people in robes and women who seemed to be wearing dresses from the nineteenth century, and maybe that one small fellow didn't look entirely human, but nonetheless, they weren't threatening or anything. It was like a little goth village.

Right, a street of powerful goths. She could do this. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked into the crowd, straining to see signs because her general shortness and all the tall hats. The crowd moved this way and that, people ducking into buildings, others coming out of them, grumbling at the crowds and floating their purchases over their heads.

This is how she noticed a lot of books floating out of the doorway just ahead, which she ducked into, stumbling into a bookshelf that shoved her back a little. She stared at it, affronted, before glancing around the shop. Only Oak's mocking advice of not gasping at everything stopped her from doing just that. The books were piled high, in spirals and half arches and other things that had no business standing up on their own. Everywhere covers of books seemed to wiggle and squirm and, looking closer, she realised that the pictures on the covers moved. She took a step back and bumped into a painting on the wall, which she exchanged eye contact with.

She gasped and stepped back into the bookshelf, which shoved her forward again. The painting tutted at her. "You alright deary? You look very flustered."

She stared up at the painted, pursed lips, her mind flashing with physics and biology lessons about vocal cords and sound waves that now seemed mildly irrelevant.

"Yeah..yeah." She doesn't know what prompted her to continue talking, as she didn't even know what was happening, but she gestured at the store to the painting and asked, "Do you, um, know where I might find information on Harry Potter?"

The painting sighed. "That's all anyone asks about any more, it's gotten rather dull. I nearly cried tears of relief the other day when a young man asked me where to find books on acne potions, if you can imagine." She sighed again as she stood up and said, "Follow me dear." The painting walked out of the edge of the frame.

Sophie stepped back more carefully this time, not wanting to be shoved by the bookshelf again, startled. She looked at the wall which the painting seemingly walked into, to the floor, then to ceiling.

"What on earth are you doing, deary?" The painting was in the next painting halfway down the wall, her eyebrows raised.

"N-Nothing. Sorry." She followed the painting from painting to painting, fighting down bubbling hysterical giggles on the way as the painting chatted with her.

"All the people looking for his books aside, I would be rather happy if he showed up. He hasn't been to Diagon Alley in years, the poor lad."

"Why not?"

The painting, her curled hair swinging under her bonnet, glanced back at her. "What do you mean? Of course because everyone mobs him if he even shows a hair around here, then they all mope and complain about how he's never around. Idiots."

She stopped at a painting of a man reading a book. He glanced up, annoyed. "Another person looking for Potter books?"

"Aye. Of course."

Both paintings eyed her. "Hope you don't get too obsessed, young lady. Georginia, remember that one young witch that came in every other day to buy a new book, and when she ran out of those she read through every gossip rag she could get her hands on? Whatever happened to her?"

Georginia pulled out a little fan from the sleeves of her dress. "You haven't heard? It seems that she was arrested for trying to get some of Hermione Granger's hair for a polyjuice potion."

"On no, the nerve of her." Both paintings looked back at her again.

The reading man raised an eyebrow at her. "I hope you don't plan on doing anything to bother the war heroes?"

A book fluttered past, flying on its pages. A middle aged man swore under his breath as he made a swipe at it and missed and they both rounded the corner, out of sight. Sophie wondered if this was what it would be like to drop acid. "I sure hope not. I'm mostly just curious, you know?"

"Alright then deary, go straight down this aisle and turn to your left. You won't be able to miss them, his face is everywhere."

She had the insane urge to curtsey. "Thank you."

The paintings moved into closer to whisper to each other as she turned around.

The paintings were right, it was hard to miss. Harry was everywhere.

Most of them seemed to be from a few years ago. Harry looked much the same, but just a little younger, less filled out, more lankey. There were photos of him waving from stages next to a very tall and broad dark skinned man on the front cover a large, leather bound book. A smaller book of deep blue binding had a photo of him with a large metal. Even from a distance away Sophie could tell he looked uncomfortable in that one. A soft cream colored novel sized book had a cover with Ron and Hermione standing on either side of Harry, looking similarly younger. It was titled, "The Golden Trio."

There were others sprinkled throughout that showed him even younger looking. One in particular drew her attention. There were two photos on the front cover a thick green book. One was of him as a younger teenager, maybe fourteen years old, standing in a small group with three other older teenagers. He shoulders were tense, by his ears, his arms folded across his chest as he sort of side stepped to the edge of the frame as much as possible. The one next to that was harrowing, as it showed him the same age, or around it, lying on the ground in a field somewhere, tall hedges behind him, covered in blood, sweat and grime, clearly screaming something, his face in anguish. The title was, "The Return of Voldemort."

She felt a shiver down her spine as she touched with the tips of her fingers to his wailing face.

Blinking rapidly, she turned away only to be confronted with another disturbing image of him. He looked older than the one she just looked at, but not as old as the ones of him waving on stage, fifteen or sixteen, maybe. In this one he was crouched on the ground of what was once probably a grand atrium, marble debris scattered everywhere. Once again he was covered in grime, blood, sweat, but this time, almost worse than the screaming, his face was very blank. He stayed perfectly still as feet and robes swirled around him, putting him in and out of sight. This one was titled, "How the Wizarding World Failed Harry Potter."

Next to it there was a slimmer crimson book called "Dumbledore's Plan", showing Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny, clearly at a funeral in a place somewhere outside and grassy. Hermione's face was splotchy as Ron looked down at her, rubbing her shoulder. Ginny was looking somewhere out of frame, the wind playing with the ends of her long hair. Harry was staring at the ground, his face set into the resigned look. A man's face on a teenagers body. He looked the most how like she knew him now. Weary.

Below all of these on a lower shelf was a small dark book called, "The Beginning" which showed Harry as a small child clutching a broomstick which seemed impossibly tall next to him. He was all large green eyes and a shock of black hair, his sweet face beaming at the camera. She wanted, desperately, to shove the small boy behind her somehow, tuck him away somewhere to protect him from the dark prophecy the other photos laid out for her.

She thought perhaps she was in over her head.

"Need help finding anything in particular?"

An employee, wearing a striped shirt, sleeves rolled up, and a gray vest, settled a pile of books on the shelf next to her and looked at her with a bright smile.

She wanted to yell, "What on earth did you all do to him?" She bit her tongue.

"I'm looking for an overview of his whole life, if possible?"

"Yes, lucky for you we just got in a new shipment of his most popular biography in just now." He tapped the pile of books on the shelf he just put there. "Goes from his birth to just a year or so ago, when he was still dating Ginny Weasley. The books are as close as we'll get to official, as of course Harry Potter hates talking about himself and will never to an autobiography." Did she detect a hint of bitterness? "But this author really put in the research, said he wasn't Rita Skeeter and wanted to do it right. He talked to a lot of people and made sure everything was corroborated. Plus, when asked, Hermione Granger herself said this one was probably the most accurate. I'm sure the author could just kiss her, these books flew off the shelf after that."

She thanked him and took one of the books off of the pile. It was a hardcover, the book trimmed in gold, titled, "Legend". The front photo made her want to cry. It was Harry, Hermione, and Ron, dressed up a little, standing around and chatting. Hermione rolled her eyes, Ron slapped Harry on the shoulder and Harry was grinning at them. She knew this Harry. This was her Harry.

She hugged the book to her chest and went to the counter and reached for her purse. Another employee raised her eyebrows at her as she froze. "Oh no...I… I completely forgot. I only have norm - I mean muggle money."

"No problem, we can put this aside for you while you run over to Gringotts!" The book clerk was cheerful.

Sophie knew this was probably a stupid question, but, "And, um, where is Gringotts?"

The book clerk furrowed her eyebrows at her. "It's...the large grey building at the end of the road?"

Of course. "Of course. Thank you. I'll be right back."

She wove through the crowd quicker as she knew where she was going and skipped up the steps, pausing at the plaque by the front door:

Heroes and villains of past that have come and gone,

Matter not in this bright new dawn,

Below, remember, do not disesteem,

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed

For those who take, but do not earn

Must pay most dearly in their turn

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

She hesitated. The bank by her place always had little lollipops on their counters, not dire anti-theft warnings. Sighing she pulled open the door, looked at the interior doorman, and let the door close again in front of her.

Right. Harry mentioned goblins. Goblins. Oh my god, they were terrifying. There was something incredibly off putting about the shine of complete intelligence coming from entirely inhuman eyes. It was like being pulled up into a UFO.

"Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." She muttered, wringing her hands and pulling open the door again.

She looked slightly to the left of the Goblin's glittering pure black eyes. "Do - Do you…" She took a deep breath. "Do you have a place I can exchange muggle money?"

She could see and hear the sneer in his answer. "Are you part of Gringotts?"

"N-no."

"Then there is a varied knut transaction fee. Go to the counter on the left."

His voice was a dark hiss.

She shivered and she almost jogged to the line on the left. There were a couple of people wearing jeans, looking just as nervous as her. She knew nothing about the wizarding currency. She wished the Oak hadn't just run off.

Or that Harry wasn't being a berk.

A less frightening looking goblin, who was still incredibly hard to look at despite his apparent boredom, called her forward a few minutes later.

"Muggle to Wizard or Wizard to Muggle?"

"Wiz- no, um, Muggle to Wizard."

The goblin rolled his eyes and stuck out his hand. She took the crumbled notes from her small hand bag and pushed them across the counter. She blushed as he sneered at them. He punched numbers into the ancient looking brass sort of instrument. "That will get you one galleon and sixteen sickles, we'll keep the knuts as you aren't a member." He opened his mouth into what she supposed must have been a grin, but mostly just showed every one of his glistening razor sharp teeth. "Unless you'd like to sign up?"

She pushed the large, heavy coins into her purse, "Ah, n-no. But thank you."

The goblin's face dropped back down into a sneer. "Very well. Goodbye."

She let out a squeak which she might have guessed was some sort of salutation, and walked quickly towards the door, not looking at the doorman.

Looking out onto the street, she thought that the witches and wizards all seemed a lot more manageable now.

She made her way back to the shop and picked up her book, the clerk still giving her an odd look.

Somehow, even though the night was starting to fall in earnest, the crowd only seemed to get thicker. People grumbled at each other, annoyed at being knocked into even as they knocked into someone else. Someone carrying a large cage which contained some sort of growling creature turned suddenly, shoving her through the door of a shop so bright it looked like a color bomb that had gone off and froze there.

She fell completely over, the door swung closed behind her, blocking the end of the person holding the cage's yelled apology. Above her was a familiar voice.

"Sophie?"

"Ron?"

He was looking down at her from his great height with an aghast expression. He stooped to help her up.

"What on earth are you wearing?" They said it at more or less the same time. Ron was wearing bright magenta robes that just made the rest of him look incredibly orange somehow. Sophie glanced down at herself to see that Oak's transfiguration had started to wear off, leaving her blue robes more like her dress, but the bell sleeves still there and rimmed with velvet. She groaned. "Oh no. It hasn't been two hours yet, even."

"C'mon." He nodded his head towards the back and she followed him, glutching the bag with her book to her chest and looking around. It seems that she had reached such a level of over stimulated that her poor brain wasn't even trying to take in whatever the hell she was looking at.

The back room was nice calm gray color, with low, soft looking sofas in the centre, desks piled with paper against one wall, and a small staircase against the other.

"I'll put on the kettle."

"Oh, cheers Ron, that sounds amazing right now."

"Yeah, you look a little frazzled."

She scoffed, looking in interest as he tapped a kettle just sitting on a regular looking shelf with his wand. The water quickly started to knock around. "Just a tad."

He poured the water in a beat up pot and put a tea bag in it.

He sat down with it after placing two chipped mugs from the same shelves on the table between the sofas. "So, how'd you get here?"

"Oh, I know a wizard from work, William Oak. He did me a favor and dropped me off. More dropped me here and ran away, but whatever."

Ron made a choked kind of sound. "You know William Oak?"

"A little, I mean he sees the solicitors I work for often."

Ron sat back. "You've stumbled into the wizarding world in quite the spectacular way."

Sophie sighed, thinking of the shelves of Harry's face staring back at her. "Yeah, I suppose."

There was an awkward beat as Ron poured them tea. Footsteps coming down the staircase broke their silence.

They both turned to look. A solemn face young man with similarly red hair to Ron, though of average height, rounded the staircase and raised his eyebrows at her. She tried not to stare at his missing ear. He glanced to Ron.

"George, this is Sophie, you know… and Sophie this is George, my brother, he's the owner of this place."

George stared at her as he sat next to Ron, a ghost of a smile around his eyes. "Oh ho, The Sophie, eh?"

"The Sophie?" That didn't sound good.

The ghost of the smile almost came to life. "You're all the family can talk about anymore."

"George…" Ron shoved his brother's shoulder, his ears turning red.

"What? Sophie can't know?"

She took a sip of her tea. It was surprisingly good. "What about me were you all talking about?"

George smiled for just a second before his face fell back into a tired look. "Mostly about Harry, really, whether he was ever going to bring you over, whether or not you were good for him, that kind of thing."

Her curiosity overcame her nerves. "And was there a consensus on that second part?"

Ron and George glanced at each other. George poured himself some tea too. "The answer we came to was, yes, you've been great for him. He was in a pretty bad place, after Ginny figured out what was what."

"What was what?"

He considered her. "I guess it's only fair play after all the gossiping about you we've done. Yeah, Ginny realised that she couldn't help him get out of that dynamic he was raised in. That he thinks isn't worth the same as everybody else."

Ron put his head in his hands as George continued. "You see, Harry saved Ginny's life before, in a grand way, and Ginny, somehow despite being an annoying, bossy little sister, became Harry's dream, so there wasn't getting past that, and he really needed to get past it. It's complicated, but basically, he couldn't continue on the way he had been. And then you came in out of nowhere. It's been good for him. It's a relief to say the least that he's quit the Aurors."

Ron looked up with a groan. "I really don't like getting involved in other people's relationships, but Harry is being so thick." He poured them all more tea. "I can't believe that I'm saying this, but, you… you know that he's crazy for you right?"

It felt like an electric shock to hear it out loud. "I figured he was interested, I knew he was holding back some feelings but...crazy about me?"

"Yeah, the git isn't too subtle, you know? But I have to ask you, what do you like about Harry?" George's face was flat and serious. Ron glanced between them.

She looked him in the eye. "He's good."

George furrowed his brow after a beat of silence. "That's it?"

She shook her head. "That's hardly a 'that's it', though. Most people can't even work themselves to decent ninety percent of the time, myself included. But he's good as a standard. Not perfect. I mean the self esteem issues alone… but regardless, his heart his good. I… don't know how else to say it. He's just worth it, you know? Worth the trouble of getting a strange wizard to do a shoddy job transforming your clothes and throw you into a shopping mall on drugs just to buy a book with his stupid face on it, just to know him better."

George's smile, for the first time, was full. "Yeah, we know what you mean."

Ron nodded next to him, looking at her with a small smile of his own.

That evening, after Ron and George sent her to a place near her home through the Floo network, which was not a pleasant experience, she curled up in her bed with a cuppa and her book and didn't sleep a wink. Instead she cried her way through the pages of Harry's life.

He paced in front of her door. She told him not to come back unless he was honest. Luna told him he had magic to learn from her. He didn't think these things were separate. Why was this so hard? Why was he making this so difficult?

What was he so afraid of?

He knocked on the flat's door. A girl with her hair up in a bun, glasses, and bags under her eyes, which were almost dark as bruises, answered the door.

She stared at him blearly. He figured this must be Sophie's roommate.

"Hello."

She still hand a pen in her hand, which she jabed in the direction of his chest. "You the bloke?"

"Sorry?"

The roommate gestured into the flat. "She's been listening to a lot of R&B lately. I assumed there was guy problems. So you the guy?"

He didn't know how to answer. R and B?

"Hold on." She closed the door on him. He stood out in the hallway, listening to her tell Sophie the bloke was here.

Sophie appeared at the door a few seconds later. She didn't smile at him, but she did invite him inside.

She sat in her bed, her back against the wall. He sat in the chair. She still hadn't said anything. He glanced around the room, not knowing how to start. His eyes fell to a book with a moving picture on the cover.

He picked it up in disbelief. He turned to look at her, holding it up. "Where did you get this?"

"Diagon Alley."

"You went to Diagon Alley? How?"

"Oak, he just brought me there, transfigured my clothes and told me to piss off. But I'm not too mad, as he did me a favor in the first place."

"He just left you there?" He was standing, he didn't remember standing. But her expression didn't change from the heavy, serious look she had been giving him since he came. He sat back down.

"I hate Dumbledore."

None of this was tracking in his head. Something Death Eater-y wasn't what he was expecting her to say. "What?"

She closed her eyes, her expression changing for the first time since he came in. "I know he meant a lot to you, I… I can't help it though… he just planned for you to die. How…?" She seemed at a loss for words.

He glanced at the book on her desk. What had it said? He recognised the cover, Hermione said that one wasn't too bad. "I don't know what that said, but why would you hate Dumbledore?"

"Are you saying he didn't plan for you to die?" She looked relieved, a look that faded rapidly at his uncertain face.

He swallowed. "It - it was more complicated than that."

"Of course it was. But Harry, did Dumbledore really plan to save you to die as the last horcrux thing?"

He didn't know what to say, how to explain all of this, his and Dumbledore's relationship. This isn't how he pictured this conversation going.

"Did you really walk off into the woods to die? And you did die, didn't you, for a little bit?"

"That's not how death works, it's an either or. I almost died, that's it."

"That isn't it though, this book made it sound like you've done something that no one else, ever, ever in the history of philosophy, religion or magic has done. You actually -"

"Sophie. I don't know if I can … Dumbledore is a complicated person in my life, but I already forgave him -"

"Bullshit."

He felt anger surge, he tried to not say the first few things that came to mind.

"I don't doubt that he's complicated for you, Harry. I'm not saying that you have to hate him. I'm saying that I do. Because he saw an eleven year old boy and saw an opportunity, and not someone who needed protection."

"That's not true, he messed up his own plans, plans that were important not to him, but to everybody, because he didn't want me to -"

"What are you saying? Imagine if it was your own child, you're own little baby who was starting school, who was in danger because of a dark wizard and you knew he would have to die in order to -"

"It's different."

"How?"

"I wasn't his son, I was prophesied -"

"He was supposed to be on your side!"

"No, he wasn't! Some things are bigger than you or me, some things are more important than one person -"

"That's your choice, not his -"

"It was my choice, I decide well before I walked into that forest -"

"That's not true, you didn't know that you were a horcrux until minutes beforehand -"

"I can't do this." He stood up. This had all gone completely off the rails. Why was this conversation even happening?

She slipped between him and the door more quickly than he had ever seen her move. She stared at him with her stubborn eyes, dark and clear as always. Luna's voice whispered in his mind, "She has magic to teach you…"

"Please move."

"Stop running away."

They were at a stand still, her arms stretched out to either side of the door frame, her small stature hardly intimidating but somehow like a stone. He didn't want to talk about this.

"That man raised you for a great purpose, he knew you would be the key to Voldemort's defeat. He left you at the Dursleys, he watched you do incredibly dangerous things at school, he believed in you, and he was right to. Because you're amazing. I don't hate Dumbledore because of that. I hate him because he knew you'd have to die and left you to it. You loved him, you were his man through and through -"

"Shut up, please, shut up, this isn't your business, this has nothing to do with anything -"

"It has everything to do with everything! How can you love when love means gearing up for the greater good and marching off to your death? That's not love, he didn't love you -"

Harry pulled out his wand and pointed it at her, his whole body shaking. She stared at him, unmoved. Stone. "Harry, Harry, please, it was up to you to decide to walk to your death for a greater cause, not up to an old man to orchestrate it emotional blow after emotional blow, so that you had to walk into that alone, so that you didn't know exactly what you were getting into in the first place. He was supposed to be on your side, you were on his, you loved him -"

He put his wand down. It felt like she had stabbed him, left his insides spilled out on the floor between them. She was whispering but somehow her words echoed. "Ginny was there, you walked past her, you couldn't say anything to her because she would have stopped you. Anyone who loved you would have stopped you, because that's love Harry. Dumbledore used your faith in him to -"

"He was right though. I had faith in him and it worked out. He never betrayed me." His voice was quiet, too, but sounded hollow.

"I'm sure he was very relieved too, and meant it, that it all worked out so well. But he was willing to risk it. Everyone was, because you're their hero. Ron and Hermione, others, knew what they were getting into, and they were willing to follow you. You all were at war with an evil wizard. You had to do something, it's completely in your nature to do something. It's all terribly brave and, just, amazing, and I'm truly humbled. But Harry, you were the only one who didn't know exactly what you were getting into. You were forced, held hostage by ignorance, and I can't ever forgive him for that. Maybe because I'm not a wizard. I don't care about blood purity, I don't know what Voldemort was like. My biggest fear is failing myself and never living to any of my potential, not, not the lives of thousands, not a whole society. I don't want you do defeat evil wizards, I don't want you to rescue me, I never weighed you against the many. All I want is you, I'm on your side. I'm on your side. The rest of the wizarding world, the rest of the whole damn world, can go fuck itself. Or not. But I would never, ever -"

He stooped down, his mouth landing on hers with unexpected grace. He moved back, surprised at himself, his guts still on the floor and his breath still shaky, but she followed and kissed him back. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned his shoulders down and they kissed, her arms circling his neck, his around her waist. And for the first time in a long time, it was what he wanted.


	11. Joys Doubled

"Why the hell would I clean your dishes?"

"C'mon, I just… I've been busy and I thought…"

"That just because I'm a jobless bum now that I would do your chores? Have you lost your mind?"

"Harry mate, Hermione and I leave at eight and are gone all day, if you're just sitting around, would it kill you to…"

Harry threw his arm around the back of Ron's neck and pulled him down until he could rub his knuckles on his head. Ron yelped and started shoving him away, but Harry's grip only tightened. "Do your own dishes you bastard, we're magical, just learn the damn spell, you lazy-"

"Why are you so strong for such a titchy git? Get off me." Ron finally shoved him away and socked him in the arm. Harry lunged for him again but bounced back off of an invisible force field.

"Would you two punch each other to death more quietly?" Hermione and Sophie were sitting on the sofa, looking at them with raised eyebrows. Between them were physics books and a thick red textbook, opened to a chapter called the "Principle of Artificianimate Quasi-Dominance".

Ron and Harry looked at each other and then nodded towards the kitchen. Their girlfriends were already back to their topic, their voices fading as they walked through the doors to the kitchen.

"Right, but I don't understand, if there are magical laws, then there must be some kind of science to them. That's the whole concept of science, adjusting to new information."

"Yes, but, part of magic is the non-scientific nature of …"

Harry sat at the table as Ron went over to a self with some books on it, pulling out a household spells one and flipping through the pages with a grumble. Harry sighed, "I should have guessed this is how things would go. They're both so bookish. I bet Hermione's thrilled."

Ron turned to glare at him. "Why did you have to start dating a smart girl? All they do is ask questions back and forth forever. Soon they'll start a Magic and Muggle Combined Studies Institute and then take over the whole world. Then they'll go power mad and you'll have to defeat them and I'll have to help."

"Please Ron, if Hermione and Sophie combined powers and became evil, you think we'd win?"

Ron shivered. "I'd rather fight Voldemort again."

"Too right."

Ron practised the spell a few times, getting it right after a while, the dishes rolling onto the drying rack with a little less grace than Mrs. Weasley's would, but doing the job nonetheless.

Harry flipped through brochures, frowning as he went. "How does independently wealthy socialite sound as a career for me? I have the money."

Ron sat on the other side of the table. "You're missing a few key words there, though, such as social. You'd have to talk to more than ten people in any given month."

"I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, Ron. You pick for me." He laid his head on the table.

"How about mysterious recluse?"

"Aren't I already a mysterious recluse?"

"I think then you'd have to talk to less than ten people in a month. You certain couldn't live with people, that's not how that works at all."

"I could always kick you and Hermione out."

"Oi, why would we have to leave? You leave."

"I own the flat, Ron."

"Oh yeah. Right, better not be a mysterious recluse then."

"Wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

"Harry?" Sophie was in the doorway. "We should get going, the shows in half an hour."

"Oh wow, already? Yeah, let me grab my coat."

Sophie leaned against the doorway as Harry went passed and down the hallway to his room. "I don't know what I want to be either, Ron. Could you pick for me too?"

Ron leaned back in his chair, considering her, "How about an electrician?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Why electrician?"

He shrugged. "That's the only muggle profession I know. Hermione made me learn how to say it and words like it because I got it wrong so many times. Electricity. Electric. Electrician. See?"

"Don't you all have electricity here? What do you use otherwise?"

"Here, yeah. It's quite convenient, isn't it? The lightbulbs are annoying though. In magic houses we just use a mix of gas lighting and magic. Electricity and magic don't work together too well. Can't tell you how many times we've accidentally fried that tele."

"What else is different in a magic house?"

"You should come by The Burrow sometime, you can see for yourself."

Harry appeared next to her in the doorway. She looked up at him a little unsure. "Would that be okay?"

He turned to Ron.

"You know Mum wants to meet her. She's getting rather mad about, to be honest. It will be a little awkward with Ginny, but we'll all get over it, not to worry."

Harry took a breath. "Yeah, I would love to have you over to The Burrow. I want you to meet everyone."

Sophie positively beamed at him.

Hermione squeezed through the doorway, walking over to the sink. "We'll have to invite everyone then. You'll know they'll get angry if they get left out."

"Not everyone, can't it just be Mr. and Mrs. Weasley?"

"Ginny's back from her training though, at least for the month. Would you rather a smaller group with her or a larger group?"

He sighed. "Are those the only two options? Look, you know I love it when the whole crowd gets together, but that's kind of a lot for Sophie, isn't it?"

Sophie snorted. "I hate to break it to you, Harry, but when you come over to my family's for dinner, even just the immediate family, it isn't exactly going to be ...easy going. I'll be fine with the crowd, I'm sure."

She smiled at all three of the dubious faces looking back at her.

"So, Harry is going to your parent's place?"

"Yes, this weekend."

Ron looked over to him with a grin and a glint in his eye. "This will be a first for you then. Obviously Ginny's family already knew you… I'm interested in seeing how this goes, considering how much you took the mickey out of me for how it went meeting Hermione's parents."

"Hopefully meeting Sophie's parents will be under slightly less dramatic circumstances than that."

Sophie looked around at them curiously, but Hermione changed the subject. "Shouldn't you all be going?"

She looked down at her watch with a slight gasp. "We really do need to go."

They said their goodbyes and walked down the stairs at a fast pace.

"I can just take us there?"

"Oh no, it's a lovely evening and the theatre isn't that far."

It was lovely out, cool, without being cold. They walked through the park where they had one of their more intense conversations before. Passing the bench, Harry couldn't seem to help himself, and despite the slight nerves, reached for her hand. She smiled at him shyly as she adjusted her small fingers between his. They held hands through the whole show and the much slower paced walk coming back.

"What do you want to do for work? I mean, I know you told Ron that you don't know, but you don't have any ideas?"

He sighed. "Nothing that my fame wouldn't interrupt."

"What about something in my world then?"

"Well, seeing as the last record of my schooling in the muggle world was primary school, that might be difficult."

She was quiet for awhile, slowing to a stop to sit on the bench he had remembered earlier. "Being famous really bothers you, doesn't it? Are you sure it would ruin any career you might be interested in? I mean, perhaps not something that works with the public, like with that Auror position, but you know, there must be something?"

He sat next to her, putting his arm on the back seat of the bench behind her. She slid in closer. "You know, I think I'm using my fame as an excuse, kind of."

She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"I wasn't always like this. I used to be known for being too decisive, or impulsive, as Hermione would say. And now I just feel…"

"Uncertain of everything?"

"Yeah. Exactly."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he rested his head against hers. It was something he hadn't realised he had missed so much, touching someone. "Though the circumstances are just a tad different, we are very much in the same boat. I don't know, I just don't have confidence anymore, the way I used to. You should have seen me getting ready for my gap year. I was so arrogant. I thought I'd make a million contacts and have a mentor and learn everything there is to know about finance before I went to Uni and did perfectly in all my classes because I would have known so much from my time working in the finance world. But no. Instead I realised I would rather fling myself off a tall building than live like those people and then spent years being belittled by one of them. Now I don't know if I trust myself to pick something not horrible."

"Or if there even is something not horrible."

She squeezed his hand. "Exactly."

In the dimness of the distant street lamps, with trees whispering softly in the light breeze, with her hand resting in his, the words seemed to come easier. "I thought that I could help people. You have some idea, now, all the nonsense I got up to. And while I don't think I did well with a lot of stuff, I still tried. I helped some people. I thought I could try to help people best by becoming an Auror, but I think I mostly stressed everyone out. And now I don't know what I want."

"What other positions help people in the wizarding world? In mine it's doctors, nurses, teachers, all different types of technicians, vets, people like that, seem to be the most helpful to me. But then, all of those things still involve working with the public. But what about, I don't know, controlled public, like people you can develop a relationship with over time. They might be weird at first but then they'll get over it eventually. Maybe something that involves long term clients or something."

"Or teaching."

She slowly lifted her head to look at him. "With the students maybe, but wouldn't the parents-"

"Hogwarts is a boarding school though. I mean, I would only have to get the first years used to me every year." He felt like he had been struck by lightning. The defense professor there now was ancient, and while he proved that the one year jinx was broken as he had been there for three, he was meant to be temporary. Maybe he could ask McGonagall, but would that be rude? Wouldn't she put an ad out if she was looking?

He frowned. "Would I be that strange bloke that clings onto to his glory days though?"

"Like those footballer dads who are always screaming at their sons during their matches? Somehow, I don't think so. But do you think you'd like teaching?"

"Yeah, in my fifth year I ran a club where I taught my classmates defensive spells. It was my favorite part of that year, easily."

"Right, the Dumbledore's Army thing?" She didn't say Dumbledore with the same venom as before, her voice careful neutral.

"Yes, that. I don't know. Hogwarts isn't even looking for one right now, and the new semester just started too, so…"

"But how about next year? It couldn't hurt to ask, could it?"

Harry nodded, feeling a little shocked. He didn't know if it would all work out, but it's the only option that's felt possible in a long while. He squeezed her hand between both of his. "Thank you."

She smiled at him, squeezing back and sitting straight, leaning forward slightly to give him a brief kiss. He moved unthinkingly to kiss her back, but she was already talking. "Sometimes it's helpful to approach things from a new perspective."

"How about you, then? Have you narrowed down what you'd like to study?"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid too, of choosing wrong. What if I had gone right into school and started with finance? I would have learned much too late that that's not what I want."

"Why don't you study what you like then? It's all going to be a gamble anyway. What are you most passionate about? What gets your blood going?"

She frowned up at him. "When I think of anything, I immediately put it down."

"That doesn't seem too helpful. As Ron told me when I was hesitating, or more freaking out, about dating you, sometimes your thoughts get circular and it can be heard to get out of that mindset."

She nodded, brows furrowed, looking out into the distance. "I suppose I've become rather defeatist about it all. But speaking of defeatist attitude, how are we going to handle the whole dating thing in the wizarding world?"

He opened his mouth to ask why she was changing the subject, but then changed his mind. He owed her a little avoiding time. "I want you to meet everybody, and that will take care of most of it, all that matters anyway. And if the newspapers figure it out, which I think, I hope, might be awhile from now, as I really don't, or can't, go into wizarding places too often, then we can figure out what to do then. Whatever happens, I won't let you get obliviated."

"It's not really up to you though, is it?"

A cold kind of feeling, something he hadn't felt since he was mentally preparing for more dangerous kind of missions, filled him then. "They'd have to fight me on it, and they aren't going to want to fight me on it. I can promise that much."

She was staring at him with wide eyes and the strangest of small smiles on her lips. She shook her head. "At any rate, there are a lot of ifs going on in there. We'll cross bridges when we get to them, I guess."

"Thinking of upcoming bridges, what did you mean about your family, before, when you said you weren't afraid of meeting my whole crowd?"

She smiled widely, "I think you're just going to have to find out."

Sohpie's parents' neighborhood wasn't all that different than Private Drive, in a lot of ways. The roads were neat, the houses largely identical, the lawns well kept. He swallowed, nervous, as Sophie pulled him through the door, into a house that couldn't be more different than the one he grew up in, while still being muggle.

The entryway was cluttered with many seasons worth of coats and scarves puffing out from the coat rack, shoes in a pile underneath it, the rack more of an ignored suggestion than an actual organizational tool. There were paintings of abstract bright colours along one wall. As soon they stepped in, Sophie yelled, "We're heeeerrrreee." The yell was followed by the sounds of light stampeding as a group of four small dogs burst into the entryway through a swinging door. There were two small schnauzers and two small poodles who surrounded Sophie with a manic enthusiasm and then him with much cautious sniffing .

Following the dogs, the door swung open again to reveal Sophie's parents. They loudly said their hellos, Sophie's mother flinging her arms around her shoulders, her father reaching out to shake his hand, and then they switched, her father swooping down to hug her, pulling her up until her feet dangled, her mother leaning around two dogs to lightly wrap her arms around his. "Heeeelllooo, dear, so nice of you to come all the way out here."

"Thank you for inviting me. I brought some flowers." He handed over a small bouquet of posies, which her mother took from him with a bright smile.

"These are absolutely lovely, thank you! Let's all head into the sitting room, then." She turned towards the door, more or less corralling her husband and daughter and three of the dogs a head of her.

The fourth dog, a schnauzer with dark fur around his eyes and a little white beard, huffed at him and then with an impressive amount of height, jumped into his arms. Harry staggered back, clutching the dog to his chest, who was still staring up at him, his little tail going full speed. He carried him into the sitting room, scratching him behind the ears.

Sophie's parents were starting to sit on one sofa, Sophie on the other. Her mother stood up straight as he came in. "Oh no, Rufis got over excited again. I'm sorry about that, no matter how much we train him-" She moved to take him out of his arms, but he stopped her.

"It's really okay, I like animals." He found the dogs panting excitement oddly comforting.

Elizabeth smiled at him again and then gestured to the sofa with Sophie on it. Harry sat down with the dog on his lap and was startled to see a lankey young man with dark hair sitting a small distance away at the dining table, his leg in a cast propped up on a chair next to him. Harry moved to stand again, but he waved him down. "I'm Micheal, nice to meet you, finally. I've heard from my parent's that you were really helpful the other day."

"I didn't do all that much. How's the leg?"

"It's more annoying than anything. The neck was what was killing me for awhile, but that's better now, thankfully."

There was a small pause and Harry felt Sohie take Rufis from his lap and move him to hers. "What's for dinner, then?"

Perhaps he had gotten too used to the Weasley's as he expected Elizabeth to answer, but instead it was Charles who spoke up. "I'm making a pot roast, potatoes, and some green beans. I've also got us all some treacle tart for pudding, Sophie mentioned that's your favorite?"

"Oh yes, thank you, you didn't have to -"

"Pish posh, it's no bother."

Harry nodded, glancing around the room. It seemed like every couple of feet along the walls were paintings or shadow boxes or intricately decorated instruments. Along the mantle and on a small side table close to him were a collection of photographs. He spotted one of a small girl with her hair sticking out every which way, a light blonde colour. It was obviously Sophie, maybe seven years old, sitting on a beach in a pink bathing suit with a bright orange bucket. He couldn't help but smile down at it.

"That was a fun holiday, we went down to Portugal for a couple of weeks." Elizabeth grinned over at Charles. "When was that? Must have been over ten years by now."

He hummed, "Yes, must be around 13, since I think Sophie was seven or so."

"Yeah, it's hard to pinpoint exactly, as she's only gotten a little taller." Micheal smirked at her, she stuck her tongue out back.

"Funny how time flies." Elizabeth sighed. There was a loud beep from the other room, which Harry presumed to be the kitchen, and Charles stood, Elizabeth following him.

"That'll be the pot roast, you all just chat in here while we get dinner all set up."

"You don't want any help?" Sophie asked moving Rufis to the side.

"No, no dear, just keep our guest company."

The younger three looked at each other, and then Micheal spoke over the sounds of voices and clanking coming from the kitchen. "So, how long have you two been dating?"

"About a week. We've been friends for a while."

"You already knew that, though." Sophie frowned at her brother.

"She's been going on about you for a while, so I just wanted to double check with you, Harry."

"She has?"

"Oh my god Mike, shut up."

"It's Micheal."

"Not while you're being annoying, it's not."

Micheal picked up one of his crutches that was leaning against his chair and jabbed her with it. She grabbed it as he was pulling back, and then got into a brief tug-of war before their mum came back in, carrying a dish piled high with potatoes and nearly tripping over it.

"Honestly! You two are adults. Micheal, you're a lawyer for goodness sake, you can't revert back to a ten year old every time your sister is home. And Sophie, you're brother's leg is broken!"

"Sorry Mum." They said it at the same time, grinning at each other.

Harry and felt this before, sometimes, when he was at The Burrow, less now than he used to as he considered them family, but he wondered what it would have been like, if his parents hadn't died, if he had a little brother or sister.

"Dinner is all ready, if you want to move over here?"

They all settled around the table, piles of food in the middle, Charles and Elizabeth at opposite ends, Harry and Sophie on one side, Micheal and his broken leg on the other. They all pulled food onto their plates while Elizabeth poured red wine and for a minute or two there was only the sound of eating.

It was easily one of the best pot roasts he had ever had. He turned to look at Charles and remembered to swallow before he spoke. "The is amazing!"

Charles looked pleased and glanced around the table, swirling his wine. "The key things are -"

"Patience, moisture, and seasoning." Sophie, Micheal and Elizabeth all chanted, their voices bored.

Charles looked a little put out.

"So Harry, forgive me for asking personal questions, but we are just so curious about you." Sophie's mum smile was friendly, but Harry felt his stomach clench, the pre-discussed lies and fudged truths he had practiced with Sophie swirling around in his brain.

"Sophie's said that you're in between jobs, but what was it that you used to do?"

He took a breath. "I, um, I was involved with government work. With the SIS. So I can't really go into details much. But the work environment didn't quite fit with me. I'm thinking about going into teaching, actually."

Sophie turned to look at him, excited. "Really, that idea is sticking?"

Harry nodded, hesitating. "Yeah, I mean, I need to get in touch with McGonagall still, but the idea is growing on me."

"McGonagall?" Micheal, speared another bit of the pot roast.

"Yeah, she's my former head of house. She's the headmistress now, though."

"You went to a boarding school?"

"Yes, my parents went there too."

"Where are your parents now?" Elizabeth scooped more mashed potatoes onto her plate, missing the guilty look that Sophie shot Harry. She hadn't told them they had passed.

"Um, well, they both passed when I was a baby."

Micheal, Charles and Elizabeth all looked up at him and flushed, glaring over a Sophie in remarkably similar ways.

"Sorry, yes, I didn't mention it before. They passed in a car crash, which is how Harry got the scar on his forehead there, too."

They all turned to look at him, sorry expressions on their faces, Elizabeth's eyes almost looking watery. "We're sorry to hear that, Harry."

He's insides squirmed, might as well get it over with. "I've had bad luck with car accidents. My godfather, his friend and his friend's wife, all passed in one too. They have a son named Teddy who I'm godfather to. He - He lives with his grandmother, and they feel like my family." There was silence at the table, Elizabeth's eyes becoming even more watery as she glanced down at her son's broken leg.

"I'm also very close my best friend, Ron's, family, I stayed summers and holidays with them while we went to school."

"Who raised you, I mean, if you stayed with your friend's family?" Charles voices was grave, his voice lower than it had been all night.

"My aunt and uncle, we're not overly fond of each other. Though I still talk to my cousin sometimes."

There was another long pause before Harry gave a forced kind of chuckle. "My family story is a bit of a, um, downer. But now you all know! I noticed that there are a lot of people up in the photos on that mantle over there, who all is your family?"

Charles took on the changed topic with gusto, explaining how he had two sisters and Elizabeth had two brothers and a sister, and a whole horde of nieces and nephews, who were in school, or out, older and younger, successful or in prison or living in a polyamorous household with a few other couples, or three times divorced or freshely married. Harry couldn't keep all the stories and relationships straight after a while, but he was happy to let the conversation float away on Sophie's family's much gentler family gossip.

They were in Sophie's room, lying next to each other on her small bed. He was playing with the sleeve of her shirt, thinking about how to make a move without it seeming like he was getting pushy on her bed.

"I'm sorry I didn't warn my parent's beforehand. I just couldn't think of a way to bring it up, and I wasn't confident enough to lie, what if I made up some details that you later contradicted?"

"I'm sorry that I was such a downer anyway."

"You aren't a downer, that's just your story. It's not your fault people don't know how to respond."

He stopped playing with her sleeve and moved to her hair. "Sometimes it seems like a bit much even to me, you know? How dramatic it all sounds."

"How it sounds? Not how it was?"

"I mean, it was… a lot. But when I think back at my time at Hogwarts, I mostly think of Ron and Hermione, mouthing off to Snape, quidditch, stuff like that. I wasn't so different from everybody else. Even then I was famous but it wasn't the same magnitude. I don't think I ever thought I'd miss it."

"It is pretty surreal to know someone who has so many books about their lives."

"Does it bother you?" He leaned over her, looking down at her face.

She grinned at him. "Sometimes I wonder, when you have such an interesting background and all these amazing stories, if I'm going to bore you. The most interesting thing I've done is go on holiday to Italy with my friends. Meanwhile you're a hero, an honest to god, real life, full blown, epic level hero."

He touched her cheek. "That's what I'm saying though, when I think of myself, I don't think that. Mostly I think that I like to sleep too much and what should I make for dinner. I don't want to think about the rest of that stuff, it's too much. And you could never bore me, your too… too alive. I like figuring out what we should be doing and what it all means with you."

She pushed herself up on her elbows, giving him a short sweet kiss. "All that other stuff is over, now. You can just be yourself without thinking about it anymore than necessary, then. You can be a hero and still be boring with me, if you like?"

"I'd love that." To hell with her short, sweet kisses, she was driving him crazy. He leaned closer to her, following her against the bed, her hands moving to his back and pulling him closer, throwing out the last of his worries about her feeling like he was pushing her.

He was walking her to work, feeling blissfully happy and nodding along as she explained how strangely stupid her bosses were at the firm. "Just imagine, all that schooling, all this amazing skill and knowledge, and you don't actually know how to call a dry cleaners? The last I checked I was a receptionist, not a maid."

He followed her into the building, still holding her hand. She tried to shake him loose with a grin, but he just held on tighter. Smiling widely, she said with no small amount of regret, "I have to go to work now."

He walked her over to the lifts. "Can I use your toilet?" She nodded, rolling her eyes.

She let go of his hand as the lift doors opened to the lobby and lightly shoved him in the direction of the toilets.

She had barely set her things down and clocked in before she heard the lift doors open again. Oak came out with his usual flourish, smirking at her glare.

"Why hello there Mr. I'm-going-to-throw-a-person-into-a-completely-new-world-and-then-flee."

He just chuckled and leaned against the counter, lazily opening his briefcase. "You and Potter makeup?"

"How did you know?" She blushed, wondering how much she gave away before they went to Diagon Alley.

"Just a guess." She looked up at him, forgetting that the last time that she had done that it was all very strange. The same thing started happening again, conversations between Harry and her flashing before her eyes, the feeling of not being able to look away.

"What are you doing?" Harry's voice barked from the other end of the lobby, darker and angrier than she had ever heard it. Oak twisted towards him, breaking their eye contact. Sophie sat back against her chair and rubbed her eyes, her heart beating inexplicably fast.


	12. Toil and Trouble

Harry's wand was in his hand out of nowhere, pointing towards the ground still. Oak closed his briefcase behind him, his hands empty.

"Dropping your girlfriend off at work, hmm? How dutiful."

Harry took a step forward, his face stone. "You think I don't recognise legilimency, Oak? Me? I had Severus Snape throw that damn spell at me for a year. I was an Auror. I'm asking, what were you doing?"

Sophie felt her breath catch in her throat. She thought that the strange feeling she had when she made eye contact with Oak was … off. She thought maybe she was being dramatic. But it sounded like was worse than she guessed.

Oak was silent, his hands in his pockets. Mr. Ruth walked into the room, glancing from Oak to Harry, to his wand, reading the tension and frowning. Sophie stood, alarmed, some unnamed fear forming in her. "Mr. Ruth, you-"

"Mr. Ruth. Good. Let's go back to your office promptly-"

"No."

All three muggles looked at Harry, who was now raising his wand. "You broke the law, Oak. You attacked my girlfriend. I'm also thinking that this isn't the first time, not just with her, but with a lot of muggles."

Mr. Ruth looked over to her, his eyes confused, his mouth a thin line. "M-Muggle? Sophie? Did Mr. Oak attack you? Who is this young man?"

She couldn't stop her voice from shaking. This job was silly and she didn't particularly care for it, but Mr. Ruth had always been kind to her. "Mr. Ruth, please, I think you should leave."

"It's too late, girl." Oak leaned back against the counter of her desk. "He already needs to be obliviated."

"Obliviated?" He glanced around the room again, as though hoping that someone would explain the joke. Instead the tension grew thicker. He took a few hurried steps towards Sophie's desk, his hand reaching for her phone. Harry raised his wand and a red light hit Mr. Ruth in the shoulder. He crumpled to the floor, his head narrowly missing the ledge.

She ran around the outside curve of her desk, reaching for him. She touched his face and wrist, feeling even breaths and pulse. "He'll be okay Sophie, it'll be easy to wake him up. I just didn't want him to hear any more. Better to keep it as simple as possible." He raised his wand toward the ceiling, a shimmer of light coming down around them in a dome shape. "That will stop other muggles from barging in too."

"The great Harry Potter stunning muggles, breaking the Statue of Secrecy left and right. I'm sure the Daily Prophet would be fascinated." Oak's voice was silk over nails.

Harry's face changed from stone into a careful kind of blankness. "Why were you using legilimency on Sophie?"

Her hands were shaking, everything seemed a little fake, though she were watching a play and was suddenly put on stage. She walked over to Harry's side, Oak's smirking face becoming clear as she turned towards him.

"Tell me, Potter. How do you get where you're going? How do you make your food or repair those absurd glasses of yours, hmm?"

Harry moved so that he was largely blocking her, she had to step to the side a little to see Oak, to see what was happening. "I believe that I asked you a question first."

"And I'm answering it, aren't I? The answer, of course, is magic. You used magic. Magic is a tool to be used, a skill, something powerful for us to control."

"You would use your power against people that don't have it?"

Oak snorted. "Muggles have plenty of power, Potter. It's us wizards who feel like we have no middle ground with them. It's either they are sweet, powerless creatures that we need to protect like giraffes in a safari or the bane of us all, ready to wipe us all out with their primal fears and bombs that can blow up the whole earth. But I don't feel that way. I think we can live together."

"Why. Were. You. Using. legilimency. On. Her." His voice was low and mean, he took a step closer towards him. Oak's smirk dropped a little before picking right back up. "You aren't listening. legilimency is a tool just like any other. There are Muggles out there who can cold read a person and make them believe they talk to ghosts. Yet I don't see the outrage against them."

Sophie sighed, perhaps stupidly bringing attention to herself, but forging ahead. "First, there is a lot of outrage against those people taking advantage of people who are desperate and grieving. Second, what is legilimency?"

Harry didn't take his eyes off of Oak, though he lowered his wand a little. "It's more… complicated than this, but basically he was reading your mind, your memories. And I want to know why."

Sophie had a steep swooping sensation in her stomach and felt for a moment the world narrow, her mind losing focus. She thought that, at least in her own mind, things were safe. She felt exposed, open, like she had her dress tucked into the back of her pants and had been walking around showing her butt to everyone. But she didn't do it. Someone had done it to her, like a cruel prank. What a horrible thing to learn. She wasn't even aware she started speaking, really, her eyes focusing on the beige swirls on the floor some distance away. "He was looking for information about you. He's done this to me twice, I think. At the time it felt like I couldn't look away, I couldn't figure out why our conversations were flicking through my mind so sharply."

She could feel Harry's eyes on her face, but she wasn't quite ready to look at him. Harry took a deep, shaky breath. "I'm going to summon someone from the Department of Magical -"

"Are you? Let's think about this, why don't we? You know I'm not pureblood supremacist. I'm not some knob who's out to bully some muggles to feel better about myself. I'm using tools at my disposal to gain information that might be helpful to me. No one knows what's going on with you Potter, not with your time, or motives or your money. I was merely looking for some insight, gossiping really, though rather one sided. Maybe eavesdropping would be a better analogy. You're not going to have me arrested for eavesdropping, are you?"

She felt her feet moving, the tips of Harry's fingers grazing her shoulder but not stopping her as she moved to stand in front of Oak, his face still smirking as he looked down at her, one eyebrow raising, he stupid loud mouth opening. She swung her hand back and slapped him across the face, her arm almost completely straight to reach him, the crack loud in the plush room, her hand burning and stinging. Oak's head snapped to the side and then right back as he looked at her with open shock. "You son of bitch, you straight bastard, eavesdropping my arse, eavesdropping into my head, eavesdropping my private memories, my mind. How about I eavesdrop your teeth onto the floor you bleeding -"

Harry's hands were gently pulling her back, putting her behind him again. He kept one hand on hers, grazing his thumb against her burning palm. "I'm going to call the department now."

He raised his wand but Oak, rubbing his cheek, gave a forced, mean little laugh. "Fine, it will hurt you worse than it will hurt me, anyway."

The phone rang on her desk, seemingly growing louder as the silence dragged on. On the last ring, though it was clear Oak wanted Harry to talk, he seemed to lose his patience. "Surely you see the issue, don't you? Call them in for this and we'll have to explain her. Why she knows everything, who she is to you, that she can't do magic, poor defenseless baby." He grimaced a little has he moved his hand down from his face. A brilliant red spot was growing there. "We can all talk about how much you've broken the statute. Maybe they'll take care of her while they take care of him." Oak nodded to the man still crumbled on the floor by her desk.

Harry was stiff next to her. She leaned forward a little, looking at the angered worry on his face in profile.

The bite in his voice wasn't quite able to mask the uncertainty. "Haven't you heard, Oak? We're engaged."

Oak went back to leaning against the counter of her desk. "Bullocks. If I'm going to go down for unpermitted legilimency, might as well go the whole way and tell them what I saw. Which definitely doesn't include an engagement. Unless, what? Are you going to ask her now? How terribly romantic. But I think that would rather going against the spirit of the law, wouldn't it? Doesn't your dear friend Granger go on about that all the time, how the spirit of the law matters?"

As Harry's wand lowered, Oak's smirk grew wider.

"No. Call them."

Harry looked down at her, worry breaking through the fury still lingering on his face.

"We'll try to plead our case that I shouldn't have my memories wiped. We'll do what we can. But we can't let this man bully us into silence. Blackmail is an endless game if you let it start."

He considered her for a long moment, worry and anger and fear crossing his face, mixing together into something that looked a lot like love. Without looking away from her he shot that red spell at Oak, who fell slowly forward and landed with huge boom, not too dissemilarly from his name sake.

They continued to look at each other. Sophie took one his hand in hers and with a smile she didn't quite feel, she said, "If you run, you'll just be sweaty and out of breath and tired by the time whatever thing is chasing you catches up. Best to face it. We'll see what happens."

Harry nodded once, then twice and then held her hand tighter as he did the spell that made his Stag appear. He whispered something to it, and the combination of the good magic's presence and Harry's hand wrapped around her hand quelled some of the fear rolling in her stomach.

He again put her behind him as the room suddenly had three more people in it, two in dark green robes and one in a midnight purple. They glanced from Harry to Oak to Mr. Ruth, then the taller one in green robes, with a great black mustache, shot something up to the ceiling and nodded in approval as the dome shimmered into existence again before shimmering out. "To be expected, I guess, with a former Auror here. Care to tell us why a muggle and the richest wizard in Europe are unconscious on the floor, then?"

They were completely silent as Harry told the story start to finish. She moved closer to him, further behind his back, like a toddler who thought they were hidden behind the curtains, their feet still showing underneath. Despite her earlier bravado, she was becoming increasingly scared and couldn't seem to stop herself from bunching her hands into the back of his shirt.

She didn't want to forget.

Harry came to an awkward close. The only thing breaking the silence were the footsteps of the other, shorter young blond man in green robes coming slowly closer. She could feel Harry stiffen underneath her hands. The young man leaned around Harry like he was a pillar and smiled widely at her as they made eye contact. "Cor. Harry Potter's girlfriend. I thought you were going to be single forever, mate, after Ginny Weasley. Come on now, don't look so worried, we aren't going to obliviate you."

"You're not?" Harry and Sophie said it at the same time, their voices high.

The young man laughed, "No, course not. Don't think I didn't notice you still holding your wand, ready to knock us all out. But 'sides that, we aren't going to do anything your girlfriend, honestly."

"But, the Statute-"

A low, calm voice spoke from the otherside of the room. Sophie moved from behind Harry a little, peering around his shoulder. A handsome woman with a square jaw and an easy going face, the one wearing purple, was speaking, "The statute is to protect the wizarding world from widespread knowledge of its existence. Tell me, do you plan on telling people about our world? Write on one of the muggle things, comp-compures, or whatever? Or film us with one of those cameras?"

Sophie shook her head vigorously, her eyes wide. She stepped out further from behind Harry. "I would never."

The woman in purple looked more serious now, her eyes dark and focused. "Will you tell your family? It will be hard to keep from them, won't it? You have a direct link to a wizard, so we aren't going to be picky. But that's where it stops. If you tell your friends, and they tell their friends… you can see how that can become a problem?"

Sophie stood a little straighter. "Harry's secrets, all of them, including the wizarding world's existence, are safe with me."

She gave her a half smile, her eyes less serious. "Good to hear. We're going to have to report it, unfortunately. But I don't think that any action is going to be taken against you. Potter, you're going to have to stay and explain some more things, but your girlfriend is free to go."

Harry nodded and Sophie glanced up at him, trying to read his facial expression, but he wasn't looking at her, instead he pulled her towards her desk. The taller man in green spoke as he leaned over Oak. "In fact, why don't you head home? We'll make some sort of excuse for you, very convincing, so you won't get in trouble with your work."

Sophie and Harry shared a glance, Harry looked away first. "Can I take her home and come back?"

"Best not, goes against protocol."

She gathered her purse and jacket slowly, distracted by the glowing lights coming from people's wands. Harry squeezed her hand once as she passed, still not fully looking at her. She glanced back as she entered the lift doors, her stomach dropping as she saw Mr. Roth wake in confusion, the woman in purple's wand in his face, before his eyes went distant and his normally intelligent face went slack and dumb looking. The doors closed.

It was fun the whole week is lasted, Harry thought bitterly to himself. He was slumped on his couch waiting for Ron and Hermione to come back. He supposed that he should feel more relieved than bitter, considering how everyone said that they wouldn't have to obliviate Sophie, even though they weren't engaged, unless they broke up. He asked a lot of people why, when that wasn't the law, but they all just gave him cheerful smiles and slaps on the shoulder. He grew increasingly frustrated until Kingsley, rolling his eyes, said bluntly that they were fudging the rules because it was him, and no one wanted to be the one to ruin any small amount of happiness he found.

He swallowed thickly, thinking that that fudging they were doing for him would be short lived when Sophie inevitably dumped him.

Hermione came through fireplace, reading something in a file in her hand, glanced at him, then glanced again and threw the file on the coffee table when she got a good look at his face. "What's happened?"

Harry almost smiled to himself. He could always trust Hermione to get to the point.

"Oak's been reading muggle's minds without permit. I caught him reading Sophie's and we had a bit of stand off before I called in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Hermione slowly sank on to the coffee table, her hand raising to cover her mouth. "They oblivated Sophie?"

"No."

"They're going to oblivate her?"

"No. They said that they wouldn't unless we broke up. I guess they're fudging the rules for me."

Hermione lowered her hand, open and closing her mouth a few times, her eyebrows furrowed. It was unusual to see her so confused.

"Then what's wrong? That's great news! I mean, it's not great that our ministry is 'fudging rules' for people they consider more important than the average person, but that's a different conversation. "

"It is. Except that I'm certain that Sophie is going to dump me."

"Why?"

"You didn't see her. She saw them obliviate her boss, we were at her work, and her face… I don't want to see that expression on her face ever again. She looked horrified. And Oak isn't going to take this lying down. He's going to expose the whole thing just for petty revenge, I know it. I wanted to avoid this as long as possible, but it hasn't even been a bloody week. And now Sophie knows what oblivating looks like and she's going to get a wave of wizards just poking into her life any day, any second now. It's like a lost my mind temporarily, I convinced myself that this wouldn't happen, but of course it has-"

"Where is Sophie?"

Harry frowned down at his hands. "At her flat, I guess."

"Go talk to her."

He shook his head, his stomach clenching at the thought. "I'm not ready yet. For this to be over."

He heard Hermione sigh and looked up to see her face set in exasperation. "You're assuming a lot right now. And what? Are you going to become more ready? Instead of avoiding things and getting worried here by yourself, just go talk to her."

He felt his dread build, but he couldn't deny Hermione's logic. He rarely could. "I'll call her first, to see if she's there."

Hermione nodded and watched him as he stood and walked slowly over to the phone. He picked it up and dialed her number, the only number he had memorised because no one else he knew used them, and let it ring and ring until it hit her message machine. He put the phone down with a click and frowned over to Hermione.

She hadn't answered.

She grinned down at Rufis who was curled on her lap, looking sleepy except for his excitable tail. All of her parents' dogs were cute and sweet, but Rufis was her favourite in her heart of hearts. Her mum came in with a couple of mugs of tea and a small plate of biscuits. She could hear her brother raising his voice at someone on the phone in the office across the hall, probably a client.

"A half day at work? That's a lovely surprise. I would think you would have spent it with your young man though? Not that I'm complaining, of course."

She let out a deep breath and scratched behind Rufis' ear, not looking at her mum. "How did you know, with Dad, that you were serious about him? That you wanted a future with him?"

Her mum stilled for a second and then gave a small little laugh. "I didn't, still don't."

She looked up at her Mum with a scoff. "What, still don't? Isn't it a little late for still don't?" She gestured around the room, to the piles of family photos and knick knacks gathered on family outings, to the entire house in general that they had lived in for twenty five years.

"Your father really irritates me sometimes. You don't think it ever occurs to me to spend the last third of my life doing what I like, alone, maybe moving to Portugal or something like that?"

"Mum…" Sophie looked at her with wide, shocked eyes.

Her mum gave another low laugh. "Don't you worry, dear, I'm not going to divorce your father. I don't know what I'd do without the old coot, really. The point is, life isn't like hollywood films or fairy tales, were you know that you've found your soul mate and you're a perfect fit, and everything will always be rosey and sweet. Simply put, you can't know. When you open up to someone and spend time with them, you can't know if it's going to be a waste, if they'll break your heart, if you'll regret it. No, insteady, you have to listen to yourself. Is life usually better with them in it? Do they tend to make things better or worse? Do you care about them, do you like how they care about you? Darling, what brings this all up? Are things alright with Harry?"

Sophie opened and closed her mouth a few times. To answer that would be to decide and she needs to clear things in her mind first. "What did you think of him, anyway, what was your first impression?"

Her mum leaned back, biting into a biscuit. "He seemed like a gentleman and very sweet. Not to hard on the eyes either." She laughed at Sophie's agasted look. "But more than all of that, he seems like he would be very, very intense. It sounds like his life hasn't been the easiest."

She clenched her hands together. "I- he's life is very complicated. It is exactly that, very intense. I just… I don't know what to do?"

"Has he done something to worry you?"

"No!" She gestured widely, startling Rufis. "No, he's wonderful. He's all those things, a gentleman and sweet and very good looking and kind of intense. He's world is just extremely intimidating. My life has been very, very easy and his has been very, very hard. Sometimes I feel like a child, more like a burden than anyone helpful. I'm not sure how involved I can get without just...mucking it up for him."

Her mum bit into another biscuit with narrowed eyes. "You're in love with him."

She spluttered. "I-I'm not even sure if I should be dating him."

"Does he want you to be involved in all of these infuriatingly vague things that you will probably never go into detail with me about, or no?"

"No, not at all."

"What is he looking for then?"

She stilled and sat in silence and thought about it. All he's worries and fears, he's reluctance to start dating.

"I think he just wants, um, well, I guess, love?"

She came over and pulled Rufis from her lap, placing him gently on the floor, and pulled her into a hug. "Then you have exactly what he needs and he needs what you can give him. It doesn't get much more simple than that." Her mum patted the top of her head. "There is no hand book, no guide that's not complete nonsense, that can tell you if something like this is worth it or not. As long you value and love yourself, like I know you do, you'll know in your heart what's worth it or not. So the question then becomes, is he worth it to you now?"

She pulled back a little, her mind clearer already. "Yeah. Yes, I already knew that, I never doubted that."

"Then there you go. Look at you, my little girl growing up."

She rested her head against her mums shoulder, taking in the scent of her lilac laundry detergent, and felt safe. "Thanks mum."

Harry was lying on the living room floor, Hermione and Ron whispering loudly about him on one sofa.

"Poor bloke, he's an anxious mess."

"It's rather silly to me, I mean, didn't Sophie say that she wasn't going to be scared off?

"Yeah, but he's convinced that she's going to leave him now that the reality of the situation has presented itself."

"What reality? She's not going to be obliviated!"

"Unless they break up, though. Maybe she thinks that's kind of heavy?"

"How do you mean?"

"Like, Hey, you have to date me or your memories get wiped? That's kind of rough, isn't it?"

"Like maybe she'll think that's too much pressure, best be done with it now before I have to get too many memories removed?"

"Exactly. I mean, she's known Harry less than a year, what if he turns out to be a complete arse? One of those guys who cheats?"

"Or never remembers anniversaries?"

"Doesn't ask how her day has gone?"

"Right, just is a tosser in general, but she becomes afraid to break up with him because then she'll have a ton of memories erased, and that's extremely scary."

"It's a tough one."

"Would you two please, please, kindly shove off ? I'm three more words away from hexing you both."

"You don't have to get all cross with us, we're just empathising with your fears."

Harry pulled out his wand, but the phone rang just as Hermione and Ron let out squawks of fear. They all paused, looking at the phone as it continued to ring. Hermione pushed the back of his head. "Hurry up, answer it!"

He picked up the phone. "H-Hello?"

"Henry?" Harry felt his something in his chest shift.

"Yes, I - Everything was cleaned up with the ministry."

"So I'm not going to have some witch it purple pop up behind me any second?"

"No, definitely not."

"What will happen to Oak?"

"He'll have a trial, I'll give testimony, most likely, but it's not too likely you will need to."

"How come?"

"There will be proof enough in his memory. You know. Of - of yours."

"Huh. Alright. So that's that then?"

"Yeah. As far as your end goes."

"That's a relief. Since today took a turn and tomorrow is Saturday, I wondered if you'd like to do something fun with me? My brother's friend is opening an art gallery, which could be fun or boring, I guess, but I thought It'd be fun to dress nicely and stand around, pretending to know anything about it, and then afterward go to some shitty pub somewhere and drink the oddness of today away, still dressed nice. How does that sound?"

"Wh-what?"

"That doesn't sound good?"

"I-no, that sounds great. I just thought - I called earlier and you didn't answer, so, I thought-"

"Oh I'm at my parent's house right now. I was a bit shaken up earlier, but nothing Mum's tea and biscuits didn't fix."

He pulled the phone away from him, looking at it as though it had gone mad, then put it back to his ear.

"So...I mean, you're okay with how things went today?"

There was a long pause and then a breathy sigh. "They're not going to wipe my memories?"

"No, I don't think it even occurred to them."

"How anti-climatic after all that worrying we did."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Then it's good. I mean, I feel bad for Mr. Ruth, and I still question the morality of all that, but it's only a couple minutes, at least… and now we don't have to have that worry hanging over us any more. So… yeah, I guess so. It works out pretty well, in a way."

"So you aren't going to dump me?"

There was a muffled sort of sound, which he realised was her doing a huffing kind of laugh into the phone. "No, of course not. You aren't going to dump me?"

"What? Why would you even ask that?"

She sighed. "Because I hid behind you like a small child."

Harry pulled the phone away again, giving it a look of even further incredulity. "You didn't though? Unless I hallucinated that part where you slapped Oak across the face?"

"You stood in front of me ninety percent of the time!"

"Of course I did, I said I would protect you."

"I-I, fine, okay, thank you, you great lummox. Will you get fancy then trashy drinks with me tomorrow, or no?"

"Of course I will."

"Good then, swing by my place tomorrow around five."

"Okay, yeah, I'll see you."

"Bye, Henry!"

"Wait- I, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Things happen and they're frightening until they're not. We're at the until they're not part, so good. It's not the end of the world, you know?"

"You're right. You're right."

"Are you okay, then?"

"Yeah, you know, I really think I am."

They said their goodbyes and Harry hung up the phone. It didn't all make a lot of sense to him just at the moment, but he felt lighter than he had in years.

Maybe it really was okay.

He turned to look at Ron and Hermione, who were smiling with blatant I told you so faces. "She sounded right furious mate."

"Relationship's barely hanging on by a thread, it seems."

"Shut up." Harry smiled broadly at them, making their smiles wider. He started walking to the living room door.

"Where you going?"

"I think I'm going to write to McGonagall."


	13. An Open Window

They stared down at the newspaper on the kitchen table. Ron and Hermione were standing back a little, Hermione glancing between Sophie and Harry, biting her lip. Harry was standing over Sophie's shoulder, watching her face carefully as she took in the cover photo.

It was of them, beneath the headline, "Potter Loves Muggles - No, We Mean He Really Loves Them". It was from yesterday, they had gone to the art gallery opening and then wandered around, having drinks in any random pub they happened across. They were walking, her scarf falling forward from around her neck, her face flushed and laughing, her eyes unfocused, the hand not being held by his gesturing wildly. She was clearly sloshed. Harry looked normal, his face a little rosey, the smile across it wide and sweet.

She leaned closer, reading the caption underneath the photo and let out a strange, strangled sort of sound. She stood up abruptly, all three of the wizards in the room glanced at each other nervously as she looked around the kitchen and snatched a pair of scissors off the counter.

She went back to the paper and slowly cut into it, photo Harry looking rather nervous as the blades came nearer and cut along the edges of it. Photo Sophie stared and pointed at the scissors in drunken amazement until they were free and then they continued on walking, as though nothing ever happened.

"W-What are you doing?"

She turned towards Harry, pushing the photo out to him. "Read the caption!"

He took the clipping from her and read the caption under his breath. "Pictured above is The-Chosen-One and his new paramore, a muggle named Sandra Wade, apparently have a date night."

There was a beat of silence and then Hermione and Ron groaned, Harry frowning down at the photo. "I'm really sorry about this, I-"

"What? No." Sophie looked around at their faces and started to laugh. She took the photo from Harry and looked down at it with a smile. "I'm going to have this framed."

Ron let out a bark of laughter and Hermione covered her mouth with her hand.

"Framed? Why on earth-?"

"Look how cute you look here! You usually look so serious in photos. Though not flattering, this is also still a very accurate photo of me, so what's to be mad about? Also, they accidentally called me by your sarcastic pet name for me, it's brilliant!"

Harry's face went from relieved to amused to oddly disgruntled looking with in a few seconds. "We can take a better photo than that one, don't frame it."

"This is my favourite photo of all time. I'm going to have it framed and keep it forever and ever."

Harry sighed and shook his head, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "So… this doesn't bother you?"

She looked around at their still semi-serious faces and felt her heart warm, "Were you all worried? Don't be. Don't get me wrong, it's blowing my mind that across the country there are witches and wizards looking at my very drunk face, but whatever. I don't know any of them." She shrugged, almost surprised herself at how unbothered she was. That is, until she looked back down at the photo. "Though I have to say I am quite miffed that you don't look drunk at all."

Harry shrugged, sitting lazily back in his seat, all the tension gone from him. "Just because I hold my liquor better than you doesn't mean you should be miffed."

All three of them scoffed at him. "You're delusional. I can drink you under the table any day and I'm like a foot shorter than you."

"Yeah, it's just that you don't look or sound drunk when you drink. Act drunk, yes, extremely, after even a whiff of alcohol goes your way, mate."

"But he doesn't slur or stumble at all, it's rather irritating." Hermione joined in and Ron, Sophie and her nodded at each other, then turned to look at him almost accusingly.

He smiled wide and ran his hands through his hair, "You're all just jealous."

They snorted and stood, walking around Harry's chair as they left the kitchen. "Come on Sophie, I'll introduce you to my family and everyone as our friend, you don't have to mix yourself with that one."

"Oi!" Harry stood and followed them to the living room.

"Thank you Ron, that's very considerate of you. But, still, I rather like him and still would like to mix myself up with him."

Harry grinned and grabbed their coats, his wand and her bag and kissed the top of her head.

"No accounting for taste, then." Hermione gave a fake sigh and went with Ron through the fire place.

They followed right after, Sophie squeezing her eyes shut and clinging on to Harry for dear life. Travel by magic was convenient but rather disturbing.

They landed poorly, more falling out of the fireplace than stepping into the room, only Harry's sense of balance keeping them vertical.

Just as she felt like she got her feet under her, she was spun this way and that, a wall of noise and a blur of red heads coming from every direction. She was reminded strongly of her cousin's wedding a couple of years ago. Family seeing each other, chaos ensuing.

She spotted a red head she knew, the solemn faced young man, Ron's brother, and grabbed on to him with both of her hands, pulling him forward and using him as a buffer. "George! How's the shop?"

He looked surprised at her enthusiastic greeting and opened his mouth to answer, but she was already pulling him towards the open door that seemed to lead outside, where a massive table covered with food took up almost all of the garden. Seeing she was otherwise engaged, the swirl of people swooped in on each other, Harry's tuff of black hair getting lost among a tangle of limbs, someone shouting about how they haven't seen his sorry face in a year.

She took a deep breath and let go of George's hands. He stared down at her, laughter in the corners of his mouth. "Did you just use me as a human shield?"

She shrugged, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "You have to learn tricks when you're a short one, otherwise your liable to get crushed, or worse, your cheeks pinched."

He gave a surprised laugh, and shaking his head, moved to the other end of the yard where I young women with long, long dirty blonde hair was standing. She felt something poke at her legs and looked down to a child, maybe three years old, with bright fuchsia hair staring up at her. She knelt down next to him. "Hello."

"Hi." His voice was high and sweet.

"Who are you?"

"Teddy."

"You're Harry's godson?"

"Yeah. He's my favourite."

"Oh, why's that?"

"He throws me 'round and let's me eat chocolate. Gran doesn't like me eating chocolate."

That did sound like how Harry would be as a godfather. "He's my favourite too."

He nodded, as though that should be obvious and then leaned it closer, whisper in the loud way young children do. "I need to go wee."

"Do you, hmm…" She glanced back towards the house, the crowd half in and half out of the door way, all the greetings still well under way. "Do you mind if I carry you?"

His answer was his flinging himself into her arms. She shifted until he was on her hip and then they squeezed through the crowd. Everyone was so tall and was fond of gesturing widely. She walked along one wall until they rounded the corner out of the kitchen into the living room, a woman with dark hair and aristocratic features raising her eyebrows at her but not saying anything as she spotted the toilet and walked in there.

She hummed and stared at the wall as he went and told him he was a good boy when he asked her to lift him him so he could wash his hands. He giggled when she said that he was better mannered than half the guys at her secondary school were and when his eyes changed to a darker colour, she realised after a second he was matching her, and she felt her heart melt.

He was talking in disjointed sentences about his day with his gran when they left the toilet, the aristocratic woman standing not far in front of the door. Teddy flung himself toward her and Sophie let him go to her, a little sad to lose her tiny chatting companion.

The aristocratic lady was looking down at her, also very tall, with a serious look on her face. She thought of George's serious face and it dawned on her that this was Teddy's gran, who lost her daughter and husband and son-in-law, and was raising her grandchild with only occasional help from Harry. No wonder she looked so serious. She suddenly felt like a child, sheltered and small.

"Are you the girl that Harry's started seeing?" Her voice was formal and stiff, but somehow warmer than she was expecting.

"Yeah, yes, um, I'm Sophie Wade." She had to fight off the damnable urge to curtsey. Why did the wizarding world make her feel like doing that?

"I'm Andromeda Tonks. Harry's told me a great deal about you."

"Likewise."

There was a long pause. Sophie found it easier to look at Teddy than to hold Andromeda's weighty stare. Teddy flung himself back towards her and she took him, smiling, then smiling less as Andromeda's neutral face fell into a frown.

"He doesn't usually take to strangers right away."

Sophie grinned at him. "Children tend to like me, I think because I'm very short."

Andromeda's formal posture broke a little, her eyebrows raising again. "Because you're very short?"

"Yeah, I think it makes me seem less intimidating, like a slightly larger kid, which is fair, because that's how I feel ninety percent of the time."

Her stiff face smoothed out a little, her smile small but sincere. "You know, even for tall, older people, we also feel like slightly larger children ninety percent of the time."

"So that feeling doesn't go away?"

"'Fraid not."

Suddenly there was a shorter woman with graying red hair, her apron smudged with flour, her hands on her hips, every inch of her screaming matriarch, standing to her right. Andromeda took Teddy out of her arms and stepped back a little.

"Are you Sophie?"

"Yes, are you-"

She was suddenly being squeezed, wrapped into the warmest, nicest hug she ever had outside of ones from her own mother. "I'm Mrs. Weasley, dear, it's so nice to finally meet you. I've been telling that boy to bring you over for ages now, but you know how he is, always so private, even with us." She was slowly released, her hands still being held by Mrs. Weasley's. "Please, I'd like you to come meet Arthur."

She looked back at Andromeda and Teddy, giving them both a small wave as Mrs. Weasley lead her away.

She made a lot of eye contact as they walked through the livingroom and kitchen back to the garden, but no one stopped them as Mrs. Weasley tugged her along, chatting. "Mr. Weasley works at the Ministry, along with my third oldest son, Percy, he's around her somewhere. Bill works for Gringotts, which I've heard you've been to, went there all by yourself, that must have been scary. I remember when Charlie, my second oldest, went there with me for the first time when he was five, he cried, poor little thing. Those Goblins can be so intimidating."

They stopped in front of a tall man with an easy going expression, his hat slightly askew. "Arthur! This is our special guest, Sophie."

"Oh yes, how do you do?" They shook hands, and then continued to shake hands, Mr. Weasley looking like he was building himself up to something. "I hope you don't mind, Sophie, but I have a number of questions about -"

"Of for the love of Merlin, Arthur, we talked about this-"

"Yes, but it's not often that -"

"Please, feel free to ask me anything about the normal, uh, that's to say, the muggle world."

Both of the Weasley parents looked at her in surprise.

"Harry warned- he, uh, let me know that you tend to be curious about us. I'm happy to answer whatever I can, I even refreshed myself on some maths and physics in preparation. So, so… feel free…" She trailed off, uncertain as Mrs. Weasley's eyes narrowed and Mr. Weasley's face brightened.

"You will not hog her all night though, I swear!" She looked up at her husband, who nodded happily. Shaking her head she said, "Don't be afraid to tell him to hold off, okay dear? I'm going to go get the last of the rolls and then we should be ready for dinner." She patted her shoulder as she left, heading back towards the house.

Mr. Weasley beamed at her. "I've been hearing a lot, the last few years, about these incredible sounding things called compatures? What are those about then?"

"Computers?"

"Yes, those are the ones."

She opened her mouth to reply, but found that she had no idea what to say. How do computers work? There was something to do with a motherboard, wasn't there? But exactly are motherboards?

Bewildered, she looked up at him. "I've just realised I have no idea how computers work."

"That makes two of us, then." They both laughed.

She felt an arm across her shoulder and looked up to see Harry, looking relieved. "There you are, I was worried when I couldn't find you."

"I've just been meeting everyone, or you know, a small portion of everyone. You weren't joking about the crowd."

"There's nothing quite like a Weasley family gathering. Come on, I'll have you say hello to everyone before dinner starts."

He took her by the hand and lead her around to Bill and his wife and their young daughter, to his friends Luna and Neville, to the other Weasley children, more just waving to Ginny as she was talking with Charlie. There were so many names and relationships and noise that she was starting to feel a bit lost. But then they sat down to dinner, which was truly delicious, and she looked around to everyone seated, from Ron shoving off his older brother from the head lock he was pulled into, to Hermione and Ginny chatting, over to Teddy talking with Mrs. Weasley, who was nodding along with fond seriousness to his high pitched rant, and felt, with time, she could get used to this.

She was reading over her class list, sprawled across Harry's bed. "My classes sound actually...interesting."

"Aren't they supposed to?"

"I just, I don't know, even though it's clearly a daft idea, I just still feel excited. Is that stupid?"

Harry sighed. "You're the strangest person I know."

"I-I'm the strangest person you know? You know goblins and elves and giants and I'm the strangest person you know?"

"Yes."

She spluttered while Harry laughed. "You picked English literature to study, because you love books and writing, and have said many times that you can't make yourself study things you're not passionate about, so why do you keep waffling like this?"

"I- I'm going to be poor!" She wailed, flinging her arms out and rolling onto her back.

He sighed and opened his mouth to say not to worry about it and he had more money than he knew what to do with and she should just follow her passions but stopped. He had a feeling that wouldn't go over so well.

"You don't know that. What if you become a famous author?"

"What if I become a hobo? Or one of those people that lives in their parent's spare room until they're forty five and then they just give up and never move out, and their poor mother in their seventies and eighties still do their laundry?"

"Sophie…" He put his hand on her cheek and leaned over her, not saying anything.

She relaxed a little, anxiety leaving her eyes, her mouth smoothing out from the frown it was in. "You're right. I know I'm being silly. I'll be fine, it's just… I thought I had to suck it up and study something boring and now that I'm not doing that, it feels too nice."

He smiled down at her, leaning in closer. "See what I mean? The strangest person."

She scoffed but still leaned up, their kiss was slow and sweet.

"Ugh. At least close the door." Ron was standing there, leaning against the door frame, looking like he had just seen a bug.

"Or you could have just kept walking, you pervert."

Ron scowled, his long strides getting him across the room in two second. He flopped down between them, shoving Harry back and making Sophie bounce as his weight settled.

"What are you doing, you-"

"It's clear that you can't be trusted to be a gentleman, so I'm protecting Sophie-"

Sophie tried to roll away, but was only partially successful, her foot getting caught up in blankets. She was half dangling from the bed, Harry had Ron in a headlock, Ron used his incredibly long limbs to wrap one of his legs around Harry and was squeezing him. They were both swearing at each other.

Hermione walked in, her eyes bouncing from Sophie half on the floor, to Ron and Harry's curse filled wrestling match and rolled her eyes. She pulled out her wand and Harry and Ron were shoved to the other side of the room from each other, squawking at being suddenly airborne.

"Why?"

Ron reshuffled himself until he was sitting somewhat normally, straightening from his crumbled position by the wardrobe. "I was protecting Sophie from that scoundrel over there."

"Cheers mate." Sophie said, still trying to pull the blankets off from around her foot.

Harry rolled to his front and then got to his feet, walking over and helping her out. "I'll protect you, you great git, just you see."

Hermione sighed. "I swear, you two have just gotten worse. I don't remember you two hitting each other so much at Hogwarts."

Ron dusted himself off and then walked over to Sophie, now untangled from the blankets, and more or less hoisted her up by himself. "You weren't in the boy's dorm. Remember that time Seamus broke Dean's nose?"

Harry threw back his head and laughed. "He was trying out the spin kick from that one film."

"It was kind of Dean's fault, he shouldn't have shown Seamus something like that."

"True."

"Speaking of Hogwarts, Harry, you've got a letter from McGonagall."

Sophie and Ron let out strangely similar gasps, while Harry, rolling his eyes, took the envelope from Hermione's hand. They all watched as he tore it open and read through it, a smile forming as he read. Wordlessly he handed it to Sophie, Ron and Hermione reading it over her shoulder.

Dear Mr. Potter,

Please, please come teach at Hogwarts for the next new year. I cannot express my relief at your letter of interest enough.

If you have any remaining regard for me as your former head of house, please tell me that you have not changed your mind in the interim of my reply and that you still are interested in teaching.

If so, please reply by owl if a meeting discussing the position and your role works for next Thursday, the nineteenth.

Best regards,

Professor McGonagall

Headmistress

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

"Wow, that bloke teaching there now must be terrible."

"Oh, I heard he's fine, it's just that he doesn't want to do it anymore. He only meant to do it for a year or so. Apparently he's ancient. But nobody wants a job that was jinxed by Voldemort, even if the jinx is gone now. I bet Harry's one of the only people qualified that isn't at least a little worried about that."

"That works out neatly, doesn't it? You'll still have a fair bit of time to just relax before starting that position as well. Plus, most people don't usually have the future employers literally begging them to come teach. Nice job, Henry."

Harry grinned at them, feeling lighter than he had in ages. They all smiled back.

Sophie looked down at her black cloak and robes and tugged at the sleeves. They fit perfectly but at least it was something to do with her hands.

She sighed as she stared out into the wide lawn of the most amazing school she has ever seen. But the earlier jubilation of exploring the rooms, getting frustrated by the nonsensical stairs and having the most bizarre conversations with the portraits was quickly fading. The lawn was rapidly becoming more and more filled with people wearing black, the noise of the collective chatter becoming loud enough to hear even some distance away.

It was May 2nd.

It used to be a day for her like any other. Now it holds a strange place in her heart, a grief not her own, a pride she can't take part in, a belated relief.

It's strange to think that her silly boyfriend, who likes sweets and flying and running around with Ron and asking Hermione questions he should probably already know the answer to and picking Teddy up by his ankles and kissing her so sweetly it feels like her heart will explode, is at the center of all this.

Ron, Hermione, Neville, also all honoured and spoken about in a tone of reverence that feels so outside of their easy conversations and lame jokes.

She learned about them all outside of these roles, but though she doesn't want to admit it sometimes, she can picture them in them too. She feels the distance occasionally, the wide, unbridgeable gap in their experiences. When she was seventeen, she studied and laid around with her friends and felt invincible. She knew who she was and what she was going to do and never really questioned her safety.

Harry flinched at green lights sometimes. He gets too anxious when he doesn't hear back from his loved ones by the time he thinks he should have. His laughter, his light hearted expressions, can melt away so easily. His youthful face can harden into something grim and old too easily.

Ron, Hermione and him can have whole conversations just looking at each other. Hermione is the brains of their little group, the way they defer to her knowledge with unthinking trust. Ron, in his own strange way, has the final word. If something is going to happen, it needs Ron's okay.

But Harry, he leads them. That was strange to witness, that time she had hurt her foot and ankle being a spaz on the beach with them one gloomy winter day by Fluer and Bill's house. He barked instructions to them and they… just did them.

She had read about their adventures. She had heard about them. But the longer she knew them, the more she could see their fairy tales woven into their actions, their words, their personalities.

They were heroes.

She left the shade of the entryway and made her way over to the Weasleys. It was Ginny who turned to look at her, who moved to the side to let them join their group. Harry, Ron and Hermione were standing by a podium where the Minister of Magic was going to make a speech of some kind.

The family was hovering around Mrs. Weasley, who wasn't crying, but somehow her blank, shakey expression was so much worse.

She felt like a little alien child. She leaned towards Ginny, "I wish I could, I don't know, do something."

"You've done plenty."

She looked up at her, regret already taking shape, opening her mouth to apologise. She hadn't meant to make this about herself, to seek comfort from the girl who had lost her brother a few short years ago. Ginny shook her head before she could speak.

"You put up with that moody prat."

"Harry's not moody!"

She snorted.

"Alright, he's very moody, but whatever."

"Exactly. For you it's a whatever. For me it felt like failure."

Sophie considered her for a moment. "You and Harry are hardly the first people in the world to try to date an idea instead of a person. You both are so hard on yourselves."

Ginny stared back at her for a long second and then blinked once, then twice, before looking away. "Yeah. You know… yeah."

She felt a familiar warm hand take hold of hers and turned to see Harry frowning down at her. "You okay?" She smiled and nodded as Ginny made a disbelieving noise.

"What, you worried I'm being mean or something?"

Harry looked aghast. "Of course not. Besides, I know she looks like this, but she's actually pretty hard to bully."

Ginny laughed as Sophie slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you look as threatening a basket of kittens."

"Hey, kittens have sharp claws you know?"

"You're a dork."

"I'm your dork."

Harry grinned down at her, pulling her towards some seats. Everyone started to settle, watching as Kingsley moved towards the podium.

"I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad to be here."

Harry sighed, leaning back into his seat. "I'm allowed to be happy? Even today?"

"Yes."

"Can I always be happy?" He whispered this into her shoulder.

"No, that's not life."

"Damn." He grinned in a strange way.

She reached up and with her thumb she lightly traced the faded scar on his forehead.

"Its okay though. We'll be okay."


End file.
